Mixed Messages (A Malone Mystery) (8 page)

After she finished cleaning up and did the dishes, she walked down the hall and peeked in at the kids. She was relieved to see that they were still engrossed in their program
.
At least
this time
they didn’t witness David’s tantrum, she thought
.
It’s bad enough what goes on between their father and me but I wish there was a way to keep them from being affected
.
She
went
back to the kitchen,
grabbed the overflowing bag of
trash
from the garbage can, secured it with a tie and opened the kitchen door
.
It’s getting dark so much earlier now,
she thought
, as she stepped outside into the drizzling rain, and we haven’t even turned back the clocks for Daylight Savings Time yet.

As she turned the corner of the house, she let out a small scream, almost dropping the bag
of garbage
.

“Oh, my God, Lawrence, you startled me
!
”

“I’m sorry,” he said, looking down at this feet
.
“I didn’t mean to.”

“Oh,
no problem
.
I guess I’m just a little jumpy tonight
.
How’ve you been
?
”

“I’m fine,” he said, shuffling his feet back and forth.

“
How’s your mother
?
I haven’t talked to her in a couple of days.”

“
She’
s fine
.
” He
pushed his
shirtsleeve
up and glanced
at his wristwatch
.
“Speaking of her
,
I have
to go in
.
It’s time to watch Jeopardy with
my
mother
.”
As he turned and headed toward the front of the house, he called over his shoulder, “I think I hear your phone.”

Lawrence is such a sweet person, she thought
.
It’s a shame that he has that horrible condition
.
See, David, there are worse things
.
She quickly lifted the lid of the garbage can and stuffed the bag inside
.
She hurried into the kitchen
but
, just as she reached for the phone, it stopped ringing.

“That figures,” she said aloud
.
“Oh well, probably just another annoying telemarketer or a
wrong number
.”

That night,
Ann
went to bed right after the kids. She lay awake for a long time, staring at
the ceiling and
thinking.
She was so tired
. It had been an exhausting day
and
now
all she wanted to do was sleep
but, e
very time she closed her eyes, she saw the red spaghetti sauce splattered everywhere
.
Like blood, she thought
.
Like blood, dripping down the walls.

Chapter
10

DAVID WAS SO ANGRY
when he left the house that he drove aimlessly around the neighborhood, thinking back to his childhood
.
I was just like Davey when I was his age
.
They said I was hyperactive too, he recalled
.
They gave me Ritalin; they said it would calm me down enough to help me to concentrate in school
.
Oh, it
definitely
calmed me down
.
It calmed me down so much that
I felt like a zombie most of the time; I was always so tired and out of it and I never had an appetite
.
I hated it! Nobody is ever going to do that to my son
!

It didn’t take long for his anger to turn into guilt
.
I wish I’d explained
to Ann
how I feel and why I feel that way, he thought
.
I’m not proud of the way I behaved
.
Why do I do that? he wondered
.
Why can’t I control my temper and why do I treat
her
that way? And why do I whine to my mother about her
?
Ann
tries to be a good wife
.
The problem isn’t Ann; the problem is me.
I’m a lowlife; I haven’t been a real husband in a long time
.
It’s not that I don’t find her
attractive; she’s so pretty and so good
.
I don’t deserve her; I never have
.
After all these years,
I’m still amazed
that she eve
r
agreed to go out with me, let alon
e
marry me.

Well, there’s no way I can work feeling like this, he decided. He thought about going to
the gambling boat but he knew that his credit cards were maxed out and the only money he had was the twenty dollars his mother had given him
.
He glanced down at
the
gas gauge and saw that he only had a quarter of a tank left. He pulled over into an empty parking lot,
turned
off
the
ignition
,
leaned back and closed his eyes.

He woke up about an hour later and
considered going home but he
still
couldn’t force himself to
face
Ann
.
He knew
that
he owed her an apology but i
t seemed like that’s all he was doing lately, apologizing
.
If he didn’t say he was sorry, she’d ignore him, give him the cold shoulder
.
He hated that.
And, if he did apologize, she’d be right again and he’d be wrong
.
He
definitely
couldn’t take anymore of that
.
He started the car back up and drove to his favorite neighborhood bar.

By the time
he
reached Whitey’s
Tavern
, the rain was coming down hard
.
He sat
in his car
, staring at the dilapidated
one-story
stucco building
.
Even through the heavy rain, he could see the graffiti and the paint peeling off
of
the walls
.
He slammed his car door, pulled his
trench coat
up over his head and made a run for the door
.
Once inside, he headed straight for the bar and sat down on a stool at the far end
.

“Hey, Davey Boy
.
How ya doin’?” Joe, one of the part-time bartenders asked.

David looked up
him
.
“Give me a draft, Joe,” he said, pulling a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from his jacket pocket.

While he waited for his beer, David lit a cigarette and glanced around the room
.
Nothing much had changed since he’d first started coming here, back in the days when he and his
friends
were old enough to drink legally
.
Same scuffed up tables and chairs, scarred knotty pine paneling on all the walls, a jukebox in the corner and a bristle dartboard on the back wall
.
Tonight, there was no one else
at
the bar
or at any of the tables
but he could see two bikers wearing black
leather jackets with chains hanging from their waists, shooting pool in the adjacent room.

“Kinda quiet tonight, isn’t it, Joe?”

“Yeah
.
It’s still early,” the bartender answered
.
“But,” he said, winking, “it’ll get busy in a while
.
You’ll see
.
Ya wanna know why?”

“Sure, I’ll bite
.
Why?” David asked.

“Because,” Joe said, “it’s gloomy and nasty out
.
You’d be surprised how many people’s moods are affected by the weather
.
So, it stands to reason, that when it’s depressing out, depressed people are gonna come here to feel better
.”
He grinned,
obviously
proud of himself
.
“You don’t believe me, you wanna put a little wager on it?”

“No,” David said, realizing he was one of the people that Joe was describing
.
“I believe you
.
That’s interesting
.”
He chugged the rest of his first beer
.
“Give me another one, Joe
.”

The bartender set
the beer
on the counter in front of
him
and asked, “So, what’s goin’ on with you?”

“Ah, same old, same old,
” David
replied
.

The door opened, letting in a gust of cold, damp air
.
An old man, who David recognized as one of the regulars, staggered over and sat down next to him
.
Joe immediately brought
the man
a drink.

“Man
,‘s
crappy out there,” the old man said, slurring his words
.
“I’da stayed home
‘cept
the old lady was buggin’ the piss outta me
.
Sometimes a man just has to get away
.
Ya know what I mean?
”
he asked, turning toward David.
He gulped
down the contents of his glass
and slammed the empty glass down on the bar
.
“Give me another one, Joe
.
Damn women always harpin’,
harpin’
.
‘Do this, don’t do that.
’
It’s
‘nuff
to make a man crazy!”

“Yeah
.
I know what you mean,” David said
.
“My wife can’t ever leave anything alone
.
Now she’s saying there’s something wrong with my son.”

“Damn bitch!” the old man said, spittle running down his stubbly chin.

David grabbed
his
arm
.
“Don’t say that
!
She’s not a bitch.”

“Okay
.
Okay,” the old man said, pulling his arm back
.
“All I meant is damn women think they know everything
.
They think they’re so perfect; they’re always right.”

“Yeah,” David agreed
.
“I’m always wrong
.
I’m sick of it!”

The old man grinned, revealing a mouthful of
yellowed, decaying
teeth.
“You know what it is, don’t ya?”
he
asked,
inchin
g
closer to David
.
David
leaned
as far away from him as he could without falling off
of
the stool; the man’s breath was horrible. “
She don’t accept you for who you are
.
She’s always tryin’ to change you, ain’t she?”

David nodded his head
.
The old man had a point
.
“Joe, give me another one,” he said, lighting another cigarette.

“You know, Davey, my boy,” the old man said, patting David’s knee, “I remember when your old man used to come in here
.
Now that was somebody who could really put ‘em away
!
Drank like a fish; never
even fazed him
.
He sure could hold his liquor.
What ever happened to him?”

Yeah, David thought, ignoring the old man
.
Whatever did happen to him
?
One day we
were tossing ball in the yard and the next day he was gone
.
How could he leave me?
he
wondered. How could he leave me without even saying goodbye? And why haven’t I heard from
him in all these years
?