Flowering Judas (37 page)

Penny's mouth felt bad. She needed to get up and brush her teeth. Her vision was fuzzy, on and off. She needed her eyes to focus on a more consistent basis.

“I'm not sleeping in my car,” she said. “I'm sleeping in a perfectly wonderful bed, complete with quilts, and I'm sleeping in.”

“You're sleeping in a room at the Howard Johnson that actually belongs to this Gregor Demarkian person,” Graham said. “You're there because he found you sleeping in your car and he didn't want to leave you there. Don't try to put this on with me. He called me. And he called George.”

Penny sat forward and bent over her knees. “He doesn't even know you exist. Where would he have gotten your number?”

“Off your phone. He said you left it in his room when you went to bed.”

“I never leave my phone anywhere.”

“Then maybe he lifted it.”

“It was right here next to the bed this morning. You woke me up with it.”

“Then maybe he lifted it and put it back. Would you stop this? What's wrong with you? You were sleeping in your goddamned car. You could have frozen to death—”

“Well, I wasn't sleeping there in the winter,” Penny said. “What do you take me for?”

“Winter will be coming around again,” Graham said, “and if you didn't freeze to death, you could have been mugged. You could have been murdered. And don't tell me nobody gets murdered in Mattatuck. There were two murders there just last night. It's been all over CNN.”

“I wouldn't have been sleeping in the car when winter came around again,” Penny said. “I'd have had enough for an apartment by then. It was just a temporary—”

“It's going to be a lot more temporary than you know. We're coming out there. We're going to be there by tomorrow morning.”

“What?” Penny was now wide awake. “But you can't do that. You've got work. And all those college loans. You can't just—”

“The plane tickets are already bought. George will call you in a minute about what you're going to do tonight. We're getting all three of us rooms at that Holiday Inn of yours—”

“Howard Johnson.”

“Whatever. It doesn't matter. We're getting them for tonight and you can go to bed in your room like a sane person. And you better be there and be ready for us when we get there, because when we say tomorrow morning, we mean it.”

“It depends on whether or not I have to teach,” Penny said. “I can't just cancel a class—”

“You don't teach at four o'clock in the morning. That's when our plane gets in. And you don't teach at six, which will probably be when we show up. And if we're late in any way, you'd damned better be sure you've left a note telling us where you've gone, because if you don't, we're going to hunt you down and wring your neck.”

“But,” Penny said.

The phone was dead.

Penny swung her legs off the bed and sat there, holding her hair in her hands. The remote was right there on the night table. She picked it up and turned the television on. The first channel she got was some kind of cooking network. She flipped around a little and settled on one of the local stations. It was broadcasting a talk show where everybody was much too cheery, but it had a news feed running underneath.

The two dead bodies discovered at Stephenson Dam this morning have been identified as belonging to Althea Marie Michaelman, 52, and Michael Robert Katowski, 48.

The names meant absolutely nothing to her. She had no idea what was going on.

The phone rang again, and she picked it up again. The face in the window this time belonged to George. Penny sighed.

“Yes,” she said.

“Are you proud of yourself?” George said. “I mean, really? Are you just peachy keen proud of yourself? Because you've pulled a lot of stunts in your day, and I've even helped with some of them, but this really tears it. This really tears. it. What the hell did you think you were doing?”

“I was just trying to get through a couple of months,” Penny said. “This really isn't as big a thing as you're making it. It was just for a few months and then in the fall I was going to rent a regular place. I just needed to save up—”

“Are you out of your mind?” George said. “Are you crazy? Seriously, Mom, listen to yourself. You had to get through a couple of months? Why? You've got two grown children and we're both working—”

“You've got your own lives to lead,” Penny said. “You've got those college loans to repay. And you can't let those default. It ruins your credit rating. And you need a credit rating these days if you want a new job or anything like that. So you can't—”

“I can afford to keep you in an apartment in Mattatuck. What does that cost these days, maybe five hundred a month?”

“Five hundred a month is a lot of money.”

“Oh, please. Between Graham and me, we could afford twice that, plus your utilities. Why didn't you tell us? That's what bugs me. Why didn't you tell us? You made such a point of it, after Dad died, when we were all growing up, about how we'd be all right as long as we remained a family and we all stuck together. Well, where's the ‘sticking together,' Mom? Where is it? Was that only supposed to apply to you, and Graham and I were allowed to be self-absorbed little asses.”

“You're not self-absorbed little asses.”

“You can bet your butt we're not,” George said. “You'd better get a pen and a piece of paper. I've got stuff you need to write down.”

“I really don't want the two of you to tear up your lives just because I can't get my act together,” Penny said. “I'm a grown woman. I can take care of myself. I'm supposed to take care of myself.”

“We're supposed to take care of you,” George said. “Take this down. We got two rooms. They've always got those big double beds. Graham and I shared a room for years when we were at home. Go to the front desk. Say you're Penelope London and you want to check in. We put it all on credit cards. It's all paid for. Check in, move in, order a bunch of room service—”

“I don't know if there is room service,” Penny said. “And you can't do that. Room service is ridiculously expensive—”

“I'll call the restaurant and order you lunch. It'll cost more than an arm and a leg because it will be dinner for six and you'd damned better eat it.”

“No, don't do that.”

“Do you have any money on you at all?”

“I have money on me and I have money in the bank,” Penny said. “You don't understand. This isn't what you think it is.”

“I know what it is,” George said. “We'll talk about what it's going to be when we get there. Go check in. I'm ready to kill you.”

The phone went dead again. She closed her eyes. When she opened them again, the news feed had come around.

The two dead bodies discovered at Stephenson Dam this morning have been identified as belonging to Althea Marie Michaelman, 52, and Michael Robert Katowski, 48.

She had a girl in her class named Michaelman. Haydee Michaelman. Maybe this was her mother?

Penny shook her head. If anything, at that age, it would be Haydee's grandmother. Haydee had written about her mother, and her mother had gotten pregnant and had to drop out of school at sixteen.

3

Kenny Morton had been half-waiting for the call all morning—half-waiting and half-worrying about Haydee. The worrying would not leave him. Haydee was something beyond distraught. She cried for hours after they were done with the police. Then she'd let him drive her out to The Elms on Straits Turnpike, ordered a hamburger, and cried there. The Elms sounded fancy, but it wasn't. It was an ordinary old-fashioned offers-everything-American-kind-of restaurant with large portions and the kind of thing your mother made at home. You could get meatloaf there, and Brussels sprouts.

“It's kinda funny to think of it,” Kenny said, by way of making neutral conversation. “Restaurants all used to be like this. You know, not Italian or Chinese or Mexican, just American. Ordinary stuff.”

“I guess,” Haydee said.

Haydee's hamburger was the size of a small bowling ball. The fries were piled up like a pick-em-up sticks mountain. Kenny was willing to bet that nobody at The Elms had thought of replacing the good beef fat deep-fry for something more nutritional.

“I'm sorry about this,” Haydee said. “I really am sorry about this.”

“You don't have to be sorry,” Kenny said. “Your mother died. You're upset. You're supposed to be upset.”

“But that's the thing,” Haydee said. “I'm not upset that way. I mean, I am, a little, but not mostly. I think a lot of it is guilt.”

“Guilt? About what? She was shot. They were. You didn't go out and shoot them.”

“No, no, of course I didn't. But I'm—I don't know. I never liked Mike at all. He could have disappeared any time and I wouldn't have cared. I'd have been glad. I'm glad now. I'm never going to have to see his stupid face again and that's good.”

“That's nothing to feel guilty about,” Kenny said. “That's understandable.”

“I know it is. But I don't feel much differently about her. My mother. She was my mother. And I never liked her. I haven't liked her in years. Most of the kids I knew who went into foster care when I did, you know, on and off over the years, most of them hated foster care, they hated the social workers, they ran away, they did anything they could to get back to their families. But I knew what she was. Even when I was six that first time. I could see it. I knew what she was and I knew it was her fault.”

“What?”

“I knew it was her fault,” Haydee insisted. “I knew that it wasn't bad luck or men who were irresponsible or any of the rest of it. I mean, she did have all that, that was true, but I knew she didn't have to just sit down and let it drown her. I
knew.
I hated the social workers, too, but it was mostly because they had sort of the same attitude. Not that stuff just happened to people and there was nothing they could do. Not that exactly. More like, if you were the kind of person that stuff happened to you, then you were kind of sick, and you had to have treatment. Therapy. I didn't mind foster care, but I hated therapy. I think I lied my way through every therapy session they made me sit through.”

“If somebody had made me sit through a therapy session, I'd probably kick them,” Kenny said.

Haydee smiled a little and actually drank some Coke. “It's just guilt,” she said. “All I wanted was to get the hell out of there and never see her again. Never see any of them again. Any of those people. I wanted to get out and go live with people who get their asses in gear and get things done in their lives. And now here I am.”

Kenny's cell phone went off. He got it out of his pocket and saw his mother's picture in the screen. He knew it was his mother before he looked, though. He had given her a ring tone. He didn't know what the music was, but it sounded like explosions going off between the notes.

“Excuse me,” he said. “I'm going to go out to the parking lot for a minute.”

“It's important?” Haydee said. “I can go to the ladies room if you need privacy.”

“I'll go to the parking lot,” Kenny said. “Sit still and eat lunch.”

He wanted to say she hadn't really eaten any lunch yet. He slid out of the booth and picked up. He said, “Hello,” as he was walking to the restaurant's front door. When his mother spoke, she was loud. Kenny thought she could be heard all the way into the kitchen.

“Where are you?” she asked him. “What the hell are you doing? Do you know what's going on around here?”

Kenny was out in the parking lot. It was a big parking lot in the front of the restaurant. He could look right down on the street. The street was empty. This was not the middle of town.

“I'm having lunch,” he said finally.

“You're having lunch,” his mother said. “Isn't that wonderful? Isn't that just fine! I'm being persecuted, and you're having lunch.”

“You're being persecuted about what?” Kenny said. “Who's persecuting you?”

“Well, you wouldn't know, would you? You wouldn't have any idea. You're having lunch.”

“For God's sake, Ma. I went to class. I—ran some errands. Then I stopped to have lunch. Can you tell me what's wrong with any of that? School was your idea, not mine. I'm just doing what you told me to do.”

“I want you back here right away. I want a united family. I want to make sure those idiots understand what they're dealing with.”

“A united family about what? What the hell is going on?”

“He was here this morning,” his mother said. “Gregor Demarkian. And Howard Androcoelho, of course, but Howard doesn't count. He never counted. I don't care what kind of fancy title he's giving himself these days.”

“Okay. Mr. Demarkian and Mr. Androcoelho were over there this morning. About what? Do they know more about what happened to Chester?”

“They were here to tell me I'm a suspect in that murder case. The two people out by the dam. Don't tell me you've been in class and at lunch so long you don't know two people were killed out by the dam.”

“Everybody knows two people were killed out by the dam,” Kenny said. “What does that have to do with you?”

“They were in a black pickup truck,” his mother said. “They've decided it must be Chester's pickup truck. I haven't had it for twelve years. I sold it ages ago. It doesn't matter. It's the way that Demarkian's mind works. He's decided it's Chester's truck and I killed those two people, and he isn't going to be satisfied until he puts me right in jail.”

“I don't believe that,” Kenny said. “I really don't. He wouldn't have the kind of reputation he has if he behaved like that.”

“What do you know about reputations?” his mother said. “What do you know about anything? You're a traitor, just like Chester was, and you know it. You try to hide it better, but I know what you are. I've always known what you are. If you stood on the ground next to the tree, you'd turn the flowers red.”