Bad Move (9 page)

"I think the kids are thinking the real tragedy is that you survived."

I didn't know what else to say, so I wandered over to look at the pastries. I felt like a chocolate cake. An entire one, just for me. I looked back over at Sarah, who had moved away from our cart to grab some pizzas in the frozen food aisle.

And she had left her purse sitting in the cart, unguarded, where anyone could walk off with it. Maybe she was only going to be a second. But then she looked at the frozen juice, and some frozen vegetables, the whole time with her back turned to her purse.

I returned to the cart and guarded her purse until she was done with the frozen foods.

"What?" she said. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Your purse," I said. "Anyone could have walked off with it. You shouldn't leave the cart unattended like that. You'd lose your cash, credit cards, everything. Wasn't there something on the radio, some woman had her purse stolen in the grocery store, lost all the pictures she'd just had developed of her sister's wedding?"

"We carried the story on the Metro page."

"There you go," I said. "So you already know, and still you leave your purse unguarded."

Sarah looked at me long and hard. "You need to learn to pick your moments better," she said. "And another thing."

"Yes?"

"Go fuck yourself."

o o o

I was actually working when Sarah got home. Not building a kit. Not flying a model of the starship Enterprise around my study, humming the theme from Star Trek. Not playing Star Wars computer games. I was working on the last chapter when I heard Sarah unlock the front door and come in.

I didn't call out. I didn't know whether she was still angry with me about the keys thing. But I started hitting the computer keyboard with more intensity, so she'd know I was home, hear where I was, and possibly think I didn't hear her come in because I was consumed with work. Soon, there was some racket coming from the kitchen, where it sounded as though she was putting away some food, and then it was very quiet, save for the sound of my typing. Although shortly before her arrival I'd actually been writing, I wasn't, at that moment, being overly creative. What I'd typed since I'd heard Sarah's key in the door was "Sarah's home so I better sound busy and it sounds like she's inside the house now and she's going into the kitchen and she must have bought something for dinner and I hope it's something good because it's just occurred to me that I've eaten nothing this afternoon what with finding a dead guy which can have something of a negative effect on your appetite and"

And then I could sense her presence behind me. I work with my back to the door, which means the screen is visible to anyone walking in, but fortunately, Sarah doesn't have telescopic vision like the Superman statuette up on my shelf.

"Hey," she said, standing in the doorway.

I whirled around in my computer chair. "Hi."

"Sounds like it's going really well," Sarah said. "I didn't know, after what happened to you today, whether you'd feel like working."

I shrugged, clicked the mouse in the upper right corner and made the text vanish from the screen. "I only got back to it in the last hour or so. Got an e-mail from Tom that kind of encouraged me to get going."

I turned back to the computer and heard Sarah come up behind me. She rested her hands on my shoulders.

"I was wondering if we could be friends," she said.

I didn't say anything.

"I picked up some fettuccine and some chicken, thought I'd make us something nice for dinner."

I hesitated. "Sounds nice," I said.

"And just so you know, not only did I take the keys out of the door, I set them on the table, and locked the door behind me."

I definitely said nothing.

"You know what that means?" she asked. She slid her hands down more so that they were rubbing across my chest.

"What does that mean?"

"It means we're locked in the house, and I think we're all alone."

"The kids will be home any time now, I think."

"Why don't we give them twenty bucks for pizza, tell them to get out of the house, and after I've made you some dinner, maybe we could mess around."

I spun around slowly, nuzzling my head between Sarah's breasts. They were very nice breasts. "That might be nice," I said. "That might be very nice."

Sarah slipped her arms around my head, drawing me in even closer, if that was possible. "I don't know how much work you've got left here, but I'll have dinner ready in about twenty minutes. Okay? And then you can tell me more about finding that man's body. That must have been awful."

I came up for air and looked into her face. "I'm sorry for being such a jerk. With the keys, and the car, and everything."

Sarah smiled. "You can't help yourself."

"Possibly."

And she bent down and kissed me, a quick peck at first, then a longer, more exploratory kiss, with her long dark hair spilling across my face, that hinted of much better things to come. She untangled herself from me, smiled, and left for the kitchen while I swiveled back around, made an adjustment in my jeans, and brought my chapter back onto the screen. I deleted the parts I'd written since Sarah's arrival, then reread the last few paragraphs before that to reacquaint myself with where I was in the story.

A few moments later, from the kitchen, Sarah said, "Shit!"

I jumped up and ran in to see what was wrong. A chunk of drywall, about the size of a paperback, had fallen from between the pot lights, in that spot where the shower water leaked down. It had landed on the just-opened package of fresh pasta.

Chapter
6

Once I'd thrown the cups into the dishwasher after Trixie'd gone back to her place, I put on my walking shoes. I was going to try something new today. Walk before I got stuck at the computer. Maybe a little exercise first thing, filling my lungs with fresh air, would set me straight for the entire day.

I set a brisk pace for myself through the areas of the development where construction was in full swing. Some days, I was a six-year-old boy again, transfixed by oversized trucks unloading lumber, workers swinging prebuilt roof trusses into place, the rhythmic hammers as roofers put down shingles. I could stand and watch for an hour or more, until someone started wondering whether I was a building inspector.

But this day I longed for the restfulness that the creek offered. I wanted to meander along its bank, hear the sound of water trickling by as twigs cracked under my feet. Maybe think of a way to get back into Sarah's good books. Maybe there was something I could get for her, like a gift certificate from a spa, or I could take her someplace nice for dinner, maybe back into the city to one of our favorite spots around the corner from our house on Crandall. No, maybe not. That would just lead to comments along the lines of "If only we had places like this where we live now." I'd find something good in our new neighborhood. I'd ask around. Surely people in Oakwood appreciated fine dining, they could recommend something to me other than DQ or Red Lobster. Maybe if -

I spotted the hiking boots first.

The heels pointed skyward, the toes dug into the dirt. The soles, mud caked between the treads, faced me as I approached the bank of Willow Creek. It was an odd sight at first, given the angle from which I was strolling. The boots seemed planted into the ground there on their own, and it was only as I got close that I was able to see that they were laced onto an individual, who'd been hard to spot before, what with most of his body being underwater and all.

I said something out loud, like "Jesus Christ" or "Holy shit." I'm not sure. When you find your first dead guy, it's like that clichT about when you're in a car accident, and everything seems to move in slow motion. Of course, the dead guy wasn't moving at all. The only things moving were me and Willow Creek as it flowed around the body.

It was a man, in boots and jeans and a plaid shirt, and even though he was facedown in the shallow water, the crown of his head just barely above the surface, I had an inkling of who he was.

Part of me thought that maybe, just maybe, he might still be alive, even though he had a very visible gash in the back of his head that offered a view of what I could only assume was brain. So I stepped into the water, grabbed hold of him by his arms, up close to his shoulders, and rolled him over. It wasn't that hard, the water giving him a bit of a weightless quality, and once I could see his face I knew that the Mississauga salamander had lost its greatest ally.

I pulled Samuel Spender up onto the bank, resting his body on its back. Lifeless eyes stared skyward. It was clear to me now that he was long gone. There would be no need, I thought, for any heroic mouth-to-mouth efforts at resuscitation.

I thought of my friend Jeff Conklin, where he might be three decades later. I finally caught up to you, Jeff.

I reached into my jacket pocket for the cell phone I carry around most everywhere. It wasn't until then that I realized how upset I was by this discovery; my fingers were shaking too much to punch in the numbers. You might think that punching in 911 wouldn't be that hard, but when your background is in journalism, and your wife still earns her living at a newspaper, you know that the first thing you do in an emergency is call the city desk. And that's more than three numbers.

I took a couple of deep breaths and dialed.

"City."

"Hi. I need to talk to Sarah. It's an emergency."

"Hey, is this Zack?"

"Yeah. Who's this?"

"It's Dan. Remember we talked that time, when you pretended to hurt yourself on the stairs, and your kids called the ambulance? Sarah told us all about it. That was really something."

"Listen, Dan, I need to talk to Sarah. Like I said, it's an emergency."

"She's just coming out of the M. E.'s office. What is it this time? The house on fire or something? Fire trucks on the way?"

"Put her on the fucking phone, Dan."

"Yeah, sure, fuck you, too. Hang on."

Sarah took the phone. "Hello?"

"It's me."

"What is it? What did you say to Dan, to make him tell you to fuck off? He hardly knows you. If he did, I could understand."

"Look, something's happened. You know that environmentalist guy? The one who wants to save the creek?"

"No."

"Spender. Samuel Spender. Didn't I tell you about running into him when I went over to the sales office the other day?"

"Oh yeah, I remember. That's when you asked me about those other names. Benny something, and Carpington. So?"

She still had a tone. I said, "That's right." I took a breath. At my feet, Spender's battered head slowly listed to the left. "The thing is, I'm down by the creek, I was doing my walk -"

"Must be nice."

"And I found him here. In the creek. He's dead."

Sarah paused. "What?"

"He's dead. I just dragged him out of the water. He's dead, Sarah."

"Is this another one of your tricks? Because if it is, I swear to God, I don't know what the hell you're trying to prove this time."

"It's not a trick. I'm standing here, right over him. He's dead like I'm a jerk."

I heard Sarah breathe out. "Whoa. Have you called the cops?"

"No. I called you first."

Sarah didn't question that.

"Okay," she said. "I'll send someone out, and a shooter." Photographer. "Call the cops as soon as you hang up, but you should write us something, freelance, about six hundred words, what it's like, finding a body, how you discovered it, how -"

"I know the drill, Sarah."

"Okay." A pause. "You're okay, right?"

"Yeah."

"Okay. Call me back when you can."

I hit the "end" button and then punched in 911. I told the operator what I'd found, where I was, and promised to stay put until police arrived. Moments later I heard a siren, then car doors opening and closing beyond a ridge of trees. "In here!" I called.

There were two officers who responded at first. A male-and-female team. The woman, decked out in full uniform and belt and gun, with dark hair tucked up under her official-looking hat, took me aside.

"I'm Officer Greslow," she said. "You found the body like that?"

"No," I said, and explained.

"So you moved the body." I nodded. Officer Greslow didn't look very happy with me.

"His face was in the water, I was afraid maybe it had just happened, so I pulled him out. But once I had him out, I could see that Mr. Spender was, you know, dead."

"Mr. Spender? You knew this man?"

"Well, I knew who he was. It's Samuel Spender. He's some environmental guy? He had this association, to protect the creek? You know, fighting the developers?" God. I had fallen into Valley Girl up-speak, ending all my sentences with question marks. Somehow, it made me sound guilty of something.

"And you're a member of this association?"

"No. He was going around the neighborhood - I live just up there, over the hill, in one of the finished sections of the development - collecting names on a petition to stop houses from being built down around the creek here."