Goody One Shoe (14 page)

“Yes. Like I texted, coincidence.”

“Once. Twice is not coincidence. Peg Leg agrees with me.”

Bruce raised one eyebrow. “Sure he does.” He ripped the bag
open and set tacos on the counter, fished out packets of hot sauce and little
plastic cups of sour cream.

Billie handed him a plate, grabbed three tacos and covered
them with sauce. “It was just like we wrote it. Drowned in her own pool. Or her
dead husband’s pool.”

“It wasn’t exactly the same. We didn’t write that her lover
would die. Or even be there. And hers was an accident. We didn’t write murder.”
He watched her shove a third of a taco in her mouth and snap off the crunchy
shell. “God, I love the way you eat.”

She covered her mouth with one hand. “How do I eat?” Hot
sauce dripped down her chin.

“Like a man.” He shoved a taco in his mouth and gave her a
thumbs up.

She giggled through meat and cheese and crushed corn
tortillas. How did he do that? His very presence put her at ease and let her
paranoia melt away. She poured them both a glass of wine and clinked her glass
to his.

Yes, she was being paranoid. That was all there was to it.
Please, God? Just paranoia.

BILLIE LAY ON DOC
Kroft’s
chaise and stared at the tin ceiling. Her eyes followed the swirls stamped into
the metal, round and round and round they go. Like a labyrinth with no walls, a
maze with nothing but exits. Annoying in its planned randomness. Flecks of
peeling paint drooped from the smooth finish, poked holes in perfection.

“I just can’t find any focus, Doc. Church isn’t helping. I
think I might be losing my mind.”

“What about your boyfriend?”

Billie sat up. “What about him?”

Doc cocked her head. “Any …” the fingers tented in front of
her chin. “Progress? In the relationship I mean.”

“Do you mean am I still the oldest virgin on record? No, I’m
not.”

Doc’s eyes came alight with repressed mischief. “I see. And
how does that make you feel?” She looked as though she was going to spew
spittle-fueled laughter through her psychobabble façade.

Billie poked her tongue into her cheek and grinned a
sideways grin. “Oh, like running through a field of wildflowers? No, wait,
that’s when my tampons are absorbent.” She shook her head. “What do you think?
It makes me feel like a grownup. Like a full-fledged woman. I can’t believe I
waited so long.” But she hadn’t waited. She’d just never been offered the
chance.

“So maybe that’s what’s pulling your focus?”

“Maybe. Or because I’m waiting on a promotion and they start
interviewing next week. Or because I’m having weird —” She scratched at an
imaginary spot on the seat, “dreams, I guess. Sort of.”

Doc shifted and put on her serious face. “What kind of
dreams?”

Billie leaned back and put the heels of her hands over her
eyes. “Okay, not dreams.” She dropped her arms to her sides and looked at Doc.
“There’s some privilege thing between us, right? Confidentiality?”

Doc squinted. “Yes. Why?”

“So if I tell you something that I might have done.” Billie
held her palm toward the Doc. “Just might. Theoretically. Something not legal.
You have to keep that between us, right? Like a priest?”

“Billie.” Doc Kroft set her notepad aside and sat forward.
“Tell me.”

Billie stared at her lap, picked at a scab on her forearm.
“That dissociative fog thing. It’s real, right?”

“Not fog. Fugue. F-you-g. And yes, it’s real. Rare, but
real. Have you had another incident?”

“I’m not sure. Sometimes I wake up sore and achy. One
morning I woke up on an unfamiliar street corner.” The scab fell off and a drop
of blood oozed from her skin. “I don’t even remember last Saturday. I stood
Bruce up. Missed a date.” Her eyes pinched and her throat ached with held-back
sobs. “And some stuff has happened,” she wiped a rogue tear from her cheek,
“that I can’t explain.”

“Try.” Doc picked up her notepad and poised her pen above
it.

Billie opened the flap of her purse and slid a red-marked
newspaper from it. She tossed it on the coffee table. “I edit the news. When
the bad guys get away with it, I make them pay.”

Doc picked up the paper and scanned the edits. “Nothing
weird about that. You used to do the same with storybooks. Changed the endings
so that nobody died.”

“Huh. I’d forgotten about that.” A vision of
Bambi
,
covered in crayon edits, came to mind.

Doc placed the newspaper on the coffee table. “So why is
this different? What are you worried about?”

“Well,” Billie cleared her throat. “Two of the edits have
come true. Sort of.”

Doc’s chin dropped to her chest and she looked at Billie
over the rim of her glasses. “Come true how?”

Billie explained about the clowns and the widow’s drowning.
She told Doc of the pile of her father’s clothes in the middle of the floor
after each event. She hadn’t connected it to the clowns, and the first time she
could explain it away as Peg Leg being a brat. The second, not so much.

When Billie was done, she lay back on the chaise.

Doc didn’t say a word, just tapped her pen against lilac
paper and pursed her lips. “Well, that’s interesting.”

Billie huffed. “No kidding.”

“How many people do you think read the newspaper each day?”

Billie shrugged. “I don’t know. Thousands?”

“In a city of two million? I’d bet around two
hundred-thousand or more. And how many of them do you think are unsatisfied
with the justice system? Pissed off at what criminals and murderers and
pedophiles get away with?”

“A few.”

“Yeah.” Doc tossed her notepad aside and picked up the
paper. “I bet, red pen notwithstanding, thousands of people want proper
justice. Any one of them could have done this.” She smacked the newsprint with
the back of her fingers. “Or it could be a complete coincidence.”

“Kind of a strange one though, don’t you think?”

“Perhaps.” Doc ripped the paper into shreds, crunched the
bits inside her fists, made a tight ball from them, and lobbed it into the
garbage can.

Nothing but net.

“But most coincidences are.”

BILLIE SCURRIED ALONG
the
sidewalk, her head down. Every passerby eyeballed her like the murderous sinner
that she was beginning to think she was. Coincidence, maybe. Strange,
definitely. Possible? The jury was still out.

She stared at her shoes and counted each time they hit the
pavement. At the limits of her vision, glimpses of the world passed her by. A
garbage can. A border collie balancing on three legs, peeing on a fire hydrant
and all over his leash. Wingtips, sneakers, flip-flops, patent leather pumps.
The shoes of humanity, whose accusing stares she was desperate to avoid. A
homeless man with a gold tooth.

Billie froze in the middle of the walkway. Someone slammed
into her from behind and her body lurched forward.

She spun around to face a balding man straightening his
glasses.

He set his mouth in a thin line and glared at her. “Shit,
lady, keep moving or step aside.” He brushed past, jostled her arm and stormed
off, in a hurry to get nowhere fast.

Billie shuffled to the side and stood against the building.
She inched toward the homeless man, a lump of rags and stink and dirt on the
sidewalk. He held out a paper cup and grinned at anyone who would look down
upon him, one gold tooth shining in the early morning sun. He blinked his wide
eyes at strangers, some of whom would drop quarters, dimes, or even the
occasional loonie in his cup. He’d nod and mumble at them. It sounded like
“thank you” but could just as likely have been “fuck you” too.

Blood rushed to Billie’s head, filling her ears with her own
pulse. She closed her eyes and gripped the brick of the building with the tips
of her fingers. A vision of a much younger man with a gold tooth came to mind. A
man with wild eyes and a red bandana over his long, dark hair. Could it be?
Wouldn’t the police have let her know if they’d let the man that murdered her
parents go free?

She opened her eyes and looked down at him. He scanned the
sidewalk for donors, his head sweeping side to side. He noticed her, smiled,
and blinked. He nodded in one quick jerk and shook his cup at her.

Her heart rammed up into her throat and she backed away,
turned, and ran the rest of the way to work. She raced up the stairs, flew into
the office, and dropped into her chair. Her forehead in her hands, she counted
to ten then back to one, slowed her breathing and her heart.

“What’s with you, sweaty Betty?”

She didn’t even look up. “Leave me alone, Jeffrey.”

“Well, excuuuuuse me.” He dropped some papers at her elbow
and put his hand on her back. “Seriously, though. If you need anything, let me
know.”

She leaned back, plucked two Kleenex from the box with the
bright flower pattern and wiped her brow, her cheeks, and the back of her neck.
“Thanks. I appreciate that.” She poked the power button on her computer, chewed
on one thumbnail, and bounced her prosthetic leg up and down while the computer
took its sweet time booting up.

The second her desktop appeared, she double-clicked on the
Firefox icon and Googled “Anthony Gerard
Dickinson&1993&Murder&Fullalove.” A list of sites and a few images
popped up. And there he was on her screen. Younger. Heavier. Longer hair. But
it was him. He was out. And living on the street, just a block from her office.

She shook her head, clenched her fists, and kicked her
trashcan. It flew across the aisle separating her cubicle from Jeffrey’s and
clanged against the filing cabinet. It rolled to a stop at Katherine’s feet.

She looked at the can, then cut her steely glare to Billie.
“Bad day? Maybe take it out on your own belongings.” She set her toe against
the can and rolled it toward Billie. “I need the Evanston manuscript before end
of day. Can you handle that?”

Billie’s eyelids flickered and her red pen decapitated her
boss. “Yes. I’ll email it when I’m done.”

Katherine nodded and carried on to the coffee pot.

“It’s definitely the guy.” Billie slid the open scrapbook
across the table to Bruce. An article from 1993, when Gold Tooth was convicted
of accessory to murder, was glued to the page, its edges curled and the paper
yellowed. “He’s older, sure. Looks pretty used-up. Lost the bandana. But it’s
the eyes. And the tooth.” She tapped the picture. “That stupid gold tooth.”

“He only got accessory?” Bruce ran his fingers down the
newsprint and skimmed the article.

“That’s my fault.”

He glanced up at her. “Your fault? How so?”

“I identified him in court. And I told them that he didn’t
shoot my parents. The other guy did. In fact, it would appear that this guy,”
she tapped the picture again, “might have saved my life.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope. He apparently pushed the other guy’s arm down just as
he was going to shoot me. The bullet that took my leg would have probably hit
me in the face. Though that is just speculation by the defence. And they
convinced the jury that’s what happened.”

“But you don’t remember that part.”

“No. Just the gun. I remember the gun. And the music. And
the blood.”

Bruce reached over and squeezed her hand. “Can you have the
cops remove him?”

“Do I have that right?” She pulled her hand away and crossed
her arms. “He did his time. Or I assume he did, since he’s out.” A bottle of
chardonnay sat at her elbow. She filled her glass for the second time. “I
wonder if the prosecutor still works for the Crown?”

“Maybe you need to talk to him.” He poured his own glass of
wine. “The guy with the tooth, I mean.”

Her hands began to tremble. “I don’t want to talk to him.”
She wanted to slit his throat. Rip his gold tooth right out of his filthy mouth
and jab it into one of his wild eyes. She closed her eyes and played that scene
out in her head. Her tremble eased with each flash of fake film reel and spray
of his blood on the sidewalk that passed behind her eyelids.

Bruce’s hands on her shoulders shook her from her macabre
thoughts. He kneaded her knotted muscles, bent down and kissed her neck. “Maybe
it would be good therapy,” he whispered in her ear.

“IT’S OBVIOUS SHE’S GUILTY.”
Billie
sliced a perogie in half, dragged it through a lump of sour cream, and shoved
it in her mouth.

“But there’s no real proof.” Bruce ran his finger over the
newsprint. “Even the old cases, just sudden infant death. Which, I think, is
another way of saying they have no clue what killed them.”

“Exactly, how can there be proof for something unprovable?”

Bruce raised an eyebrow. “Is that a word?”

She matched his arched brow. “You questioning the editor’s
grasp of the English language?”

He laughed. “Not anymore.” He snapped the paper to
straighten a crease. “Okay, so she’s a total bitch. Selfish, complete lack of
emotion. Didn’t even cry at her trial, and look at that picture.” He turned the
paper around.

A photo that looked like a screen grab from a grainy video
showed Janis Jones standing at a window, peering out at the media, a cigarette
perched between two fingers, her elbow resting in her other hand. She looked
like Norma Desmond, with that crazy-bitch, brow-arched glare. Billie nodded.
“That’s my point. No feeling. No empathy. Total sociopath.”

“We can agree on that.” He spun the newspaper back to face
him. “But being a sociopath doesn’t mean you’re a murderer. It’s not that
simple. Square peg, crazy round hole.”

Billie loved the way he talked. His odd metaphors, a little
twisted and sideways. He was no scholar, not book smart or a word nerd. But he
could paint just the right picture.

“I suppose. But I still say she’s guilty as heck. If she
didn’t kill the first two, which they’ll never prove after all this time, since
the judge wouldn’t grant the warrant to exhume their innocent little bodies,
she definitely drowned Ryan.” A shudder shook Billie’s spine. How could anyone,
especially a parent, lay a hand on their child? Kill them? Unfathomable.

“So what, then, is her punishment, oh judge and jury, oh
wielder of the magic red pen of justice?” Bruce had finished his dinner,
cleaned every speck of dough and bacon and fried onion. All that remained was a
whisper of sour cream clinging to the plate. He may as well have licked it
clean and put it right back in the cupboard. He watched her, his eyes alight
with their shared game, her red pen in his hand, hovering above the page. “How
about I shoot her?”

“With what?”

“My gun. What else?”

A tingle ran through Billie’s spine. “You have a gun?”

He nodded. “I used to do competitive shooting. It’s a real
stress reliever.”

She blinked. “I bet. What kind? Forty-five magnum?”

He raised one eyebrow. “Uh, no. Just a Glock 22 semi-auto. I
take it you don’t shoot?”

A vision of her father’s gun case came to mind, of him
emptying the magazine and putting the bullets into a separate locked box. She
swallowed. “No. Never.”

“I can take you to the range some time.”

Her heart fluttered and sent a surge of hot ice through her
veins. “Yes. I’d like that.” She put the last bite of dinner in her mouth,
rolled the dough and potato and cheese around, and squished it with her tongue.
She picked up both their plates, her trembling fingers making the forks rattle
against the glass. “But shooting her isn’t the right punishment.”

The beginning of the evening had her on edge. Another
article. More justice gone awry. A quick flick of red ink to set the
theoretical world right. Would that seal Janis Jones’ fate? Would Billie wake
to another report of vigilante justice and find her father’s clothes in heap on
her bedroom floor? But as they read more about the woman, fueled by online
gossip and background checks, the less she cared. Doc was right. Strange
coincidence. And damn it, Billie just couldn’t stop herself from editing the
news.

She scraped the wad of Nicorette gum Bruce left on the side
of his plate into the garbage, set the dishes in the sink, and ran the water to
rinse them. “I say she should never be allowed to reproduce again.”

“I assume we’re not talking about frequenting Kinko’s here?”

Billie hovered over the open door of the dishwasher, the
plates in her hands. She looked sideways at him. The delight on his face made
her tummy flutter. “Nope, no ban on photocopying. How about someone cuts out
her womb?”

“Wouldn’t that kill her?” He put one end of the red pen in
his mouth and held it between the peace sign made by his index and middle
fingers. He sucked fantasy smoke from the pen into his lungs.

“Not if they did it right.” She stood the plates up between
the tines of the dishwasher tray. “But it would serve her right anyway,
stealing that baby’s entire life away. Taking him from his daddy.”

She rinsed forks, squirted dish soap into the pot and fry
pan, and filled them with water until bubbles cascaded over their rims. It took
a couple minutes for the utter silence from Bruce to sink in. She turned, suds
dripping from her hands. He stared at her, his face a confusion of concern and
caring. And maybe just a dash of pity.

She glanced back at the sink. “What? Am I doing it wrong?”

He laughed. “I’m not sure if there’s a wrong way to clean
dishes.” He stood and joined her at the sink, wrapped his arms around her
shoulders, kissed the top of her head.

“Then what was with the look?”

“Just that, you seem to not have too many feelings about the
dastardly ends you wish on these people. Like it wouldn’t bother you if it were
true.”

Two clown faces crossed her mind. They deserved what they
got. That didn’t bother her. What had bothered her was that they met the end
she’d written. But tonight, even that didn’t bother her. What if she
was
doing it? Meting out appropriate recompense for the victims? No amount of cash
would make those little boys better. And dead men can’t rape.

She’d had fantasies of herself in a leather suit and cape,
standing atop a tall building, overseeing her beloved Grantham. Well, the city
had never been beloved before. It had been the scene of every horrific moment
in her life to date. It had cuffed her upside the head every chance it got and
stuck its leg in the aisle of her healing to trip her just for the heck of it.
But in her superhero fantasy life, the city was held in high esteem. This is
where she’d met Bruce, after all. It can’t be all bad.

Maybe it was fate. Kismet. God’s will. Maybe she was God’s
red pen, fixing what the living world couldn’t get right. What He wasn’t able
to do without the assistance of human hands. An eye for an eye, that’s what He
said. Maybe she’d been wrong. Maybe God was in the revenge business. And maybe
she was His eyes and ears on the ground. Or at the very least, His willing
scribe.

“It’s not like I’m the one doing the womb dissection. It’s
just for fun.” She shifted in his embrace until she was facing him, rested her
head on his chest. “Right? Just for fun?”

He rubbed her arms and rested his chin on her head. “Right.
Just for fun.” He pulled away and picked up the pen. “So, some stranger walks
in and cuts out her womb.”

“Well, he can’t just walk in. There’d have to be a ruse.
Somewhere nobody would see.” Billie nodded. “Maybe a disguise.”