Chill Factor (11 page)

"It's coming along. I hope to have it finished, not by this
summer
but next."

His idea was to refurbish the house and rent it to
vacationers.
There were dozens of listing agents in the area that kept rental
properties occupied for months during the summer and fall. He'd been
doing most of the work himself, hiring contractors only when absolutely
necessary. He spent virtually all his free time working on the
renovation. The house would have to be razed before it held any appeal
for Marilee. But William was excited about the project, so she
supported it.

"I heard the old Smithson place was leasing for fifteen
hundred a
week last summer," he said. "Can you believe that? And that house was
practically falling down when they started the renovation. Ours will be
much more desirable."

"What were you doing with Wes and Scott Hamer this afternoon
in the
back of the store?"

He tipped down the corner of the newspaper and looked at her
sharply. "Come again?"

"This afternoon, in the back of the store, you—"

"I heard that part. What do you mean what was I doing with
them?"

"No need to take umbrage, William. I merely asked—"

"I'm not taking umbrage. It's just a strange question, that's
all.
Completely off the subject
and
inappropriate.
Next you'll be
asking me what prescriptions my customers take when you know I can't
disclose personal information like that."

In truth, he was a busybody who loved to gossip, often about
his
customers and their medical conditions.

"Was your business with Wes and Scott something personal?"

He sighed, laying the newspaper aside, as though she'd spoiled
it
for him. "Personal but not confidential. Wes had called earlier, said
Dora had a headache, and asked what over-the-counter analgesic I could
recommend. He came by to pick it up."

He left the table and went to the counter to refill his coffee
cup.
Looking at her above the rim as he took a sip, he asked, "What made you
ask? Did you imagine that Wes came in just to flirt with you?"

"He wasn't flirting with me."

William looked at her snidely.

"He wasn't," she insisted. "We were just chatting."

"Honestly, Marilee, I can't believe you'd be flattered by
Wes's
attention," he said with what sounded like pity. "He flirts with
everything that has ovaries."

"Don't be crude."

"Crude?" He sputtered coffee around a short laugh. "You
haven't
heard crude until you've heard the way Wes talks about women. Out of
their hearing, of course. He uses gutter language that you probably
don't even know, and brags about his sexual coa-quests. The way he
talks, you'd think he was still in high school. He boasts about his
affairs with the same cocky attitude that he used to carry the game
ball through the halls after a big victory."

Marilee realized that most of William's deprecation was caused
by
jealousy. He would have loved to have been as macho as Wes. Truth be
known, he hadn't outgrown his adolescent envy of his popular classmate.
Being valedictorian didn't have near the cachet of being captain of the
football team. Not where they lived anyway.

But she also knew that what he said about Wes, while possibly
exaggerated, was basically true. She was on the high school faculty
with Wes Hamer. He did strut down the corridors of the school as though
he owned them. He seemed to think that proprietorship was his due as
athletic director. He gloried in the title and all the celebrity and
privileges it implied.

"Did you know that he has seduced his own students?"

"That's gossip," Marilee argued softly. "Started, I believe,
by the
wishful-thinking girls themselves."

William shook his head as though saddened by her naivete.
"You're so
innocent about the ways of the world, Marilee. Delude yourself about
Wes Hamer if you must. But as your older brother, who's looking out for
your best interest, I recommend that you find yourself another hero."

Taking his coffee and newspaper with him, he went into the
living
room. Not unlike their father, William had a routine. He expected
dinner to be ready each evening when he got home from the drugstore.
Following dinner, he read the newspaper while she cleaned up the
kitchen and did any other housekeeping chores that needed doing. By the
time she was ready to settle down in the living room to grade homework
papers, he was retiring to his bedroom to watch TV until he went to bed.

They shared a house but rarely a room.

Without fail, she asked him about his day, but he seldom asked
about
hers, as though her work was insignificant.

He expressed his thoughts, feelings, and opinions freely, but
when
she shared hers, they were dismissed or disparaged.

He could go out in the evening without having to account for
his
time or tell her where he was going. If she went out, she had to notify
him ahead of time, tell him where she was going and when he could
expect her return.

After the second local woman's disappearance, he'd become
particularly vigilant about her comings and goings. Cynically, she
wondered if he was truly that concerned for her safety or if he just
enjoyed exercising authority over her.

She performed the mundane duties of a wife but didn't have the
status of one. She was an old maid, doing for her brother because she
didn't have another man to do for. No doubt that was how people
regarded her, with pitying shakes of their heads and a murmured "Bless
her heart."

William had a life. So did she. His.

Until recently, when everything had been sweetly, marvelously
changed.

CHAPTER  8

TENSION AROUND THE HAMERS' KITCHEN DINING TABLE was as thick
as the
blood-rare T-bone Wes was knifing into. He cut off a chunk of the meat,
dunked it in the puddle of ketchup on his plate, and put it in his
mouth. "You told me those application forms had already been mailed,"
he said, talking around the bite. "I go into your room this evening,
and there they are, the lot of them, scattered across your desk like
birdcage liners. So on top of shirking your responsibility, you lied to
me. More than once."

Scott was slouched in his chair, his eyes downcast. With the
tines
of his fork, he was making disinterested stabs at his serving of mashed
potatoes. "I was studying for semester exams, Dad. Then we spent that
week at Grandpa's house over Christmas. Ever since school started
again, I've been busy."

Wes washed down the steak with a swallow of beer. "Busy with
everything except your future."

"No."

"Wes."

He shot a look at his wife. "Keep out of this, Dora. This is
between
Scott and me."

"I'll start filling out the forms tonight." Scott pushed back
his
chair and laid his napkin beside his plate.

"
I'll's
tart on them tonight." Wes jabbed
his knife toward
Scott's plate. "You finish your supper."

"I'm not hungry."

"Eat it anyway. You need the protein."

Scott replaced his napkin in his lap and, with attitude,
forked the
steak and sawed his knife through it.

"During the holidays, I let you get by with eating junk," Wes
said.
"From now until spring training is over, I'm going to monitor your
diet. No more desserts."

"I made an apple pie for tonight," Dora said.

The sympathetic glance she cast Scott irritated Wes more than
the
idea of the pie. "Half of what's wrong with him is
you
.
You've spoiled him, Dora. If you had your way, he wouldn't even go to
college. You'd keep him here and baby him for the rest of his life."

They finished their meal in silence. Scott kept his head down,
shoveling food into his mouth until his plate was clean, then asked to
be excused.

"Tell you what," Wes said, giving his son a magnanimous wink,
"let
your dinner settle, then I don't think one slice of pie will hurt you."

"Thanks." Scott tossed down his napkin and stamped from the
kitchen.
Seconds later they heard the door to his bedroom slam shut and loud
music come on.

"I'll go talk to him."

Wes caught Dora's arm as she tried to stand up. "Leave him
alone,"
he said, guiding her back into her chair. "Let him sulk. He'll get over
it."

"Here, lately, he sulks a lot."

"What teenager doesn't have mood swings?"

"But Scott didn't have them until recently. He hasn't been
himself.
Something's wrong."

With exaggerated politeness, Wes said, "I'll take my pie now,
please."

She kept her back to him as she sliced the pie that had been
cooling
on the counter. "He loves you, Wes. He works hard to please you, but
you rarely give him credit for anything. He would respond better to
praise than to criticism."

He groaned. "Can't we get through one conversation without you
slinging some Oprah-inspired bullshit on me?"

She served him his pie. "Want ice cream?"

"Don't I always?"

She brought the carton to the table and spooned a scoop onto
his
pie, then returned the carton to the freezer and began to stack the
dishes. "You're going to drive Scott away. Is that what you want?"

"What I want is to eat my dessert in peace."

When she turned to him, he was surprised to see a flicker of
Dora
the coed, whom he'd first seen sashaying across campus in a tennis
skirt, racquet bag slung over her shoulder, T-shirt damp with sweat,
fresh from a match that he learned later she'd handily won.

That afternoon her eyes were flashing with anger because she'd
seen
him toss a candy wrapper onto the carefully cultivated lawn in front of
the athletic dorm where he and several buddies were lounging on the
wide verandah.

"Dumb, dirty jock." She said it like he'd crapped in a water
fountain or something. Then she walked over to the wrapper, picked it
up, and carried it with her to the nearest trash can. She continued on
her way without ever looking back.

His cronies, including Dutch Burton, whistled and catcalled
after
her, making lewd remarks and propositions when she bent over to pick up
the wrapper. But Wes stared after her thoughtfully. He'd liked her pert
tits and firm ass, sure. They'd heated up his loins. But he'd been
blown away by her "and the horse you rode in on" attitude.

Most coeds swooned when he walked into a room. Girls notched
their
bedposts same as guys, and sleeping with a star athlete ranked high. At
that time, he and Dutch were the football team standouts. He
quarterbacked. Dutch carried and caught. Girls withheld nothing from
them, and usually they were given even more than they asked for. It was
easy to get laid or blown, to the point where easy had lost its allure.
He'd liked this girl for showing him some sass.

He wondered what had happened to Dora's sassiness. Since
they'd
married, it had all but disappeared, although there was a trace of it
in her expression now.

"Is apple pie more important to you than your son?"

"For chrissake, Dora, I only meant—"

"One day you'll push him too hard. He'll leave us, and we'll
never
seen him again."

"You know what your problem is?" he asked angrily. "You don't
have
enough to do, that's what. You sit around all day, watching those
male-bashing talk shows on TV and applying every flaw they discuss to
me
.
Then you dream up these crazy scenarios that are never going to happen
to our family. My daddy was hard on me, and I turned out all right."

"Do you love him?"

"Who?"

"Your daddy."

"I respect him."

"You
fear
him. You're scared shitless of
that mean old
man."

Wes tossed down his spoon and stood up suddenly, his chair
scraping
loudly against the floor. They faced off across the table for several
tense moments. Then he smiled. "Gee, Dora, I love it when you talk
dirty."

Giving him her back, she faced the sink and turned on the
faucets.

Wes moved up behind her, reached around her, and turned them
off.
"The dishes can wait." Placing his hands on her hips, he drew her back
against him. "You've given me a hard-on that can't."

"Take it somewhere else, Wes."

He snickered with contempt and dropped his hands. "I do."

"I know." She turned the water taps back on.

Dutch knocked several times on the Hamers' back door. Through
the
window he could see into the kitchen, where all the lights were on, but
there was no sign of anyone.

Stamping his feet with impatience and cold, he knocked once
more
,
then opened the door and shouted, "Wes, it's me, Dutch."

He stepped inside, frigid air sweeping in along with him. He
closed
the door, crossed the kitchen, and peered into the living room. "Wes?"
he called in a voice that he hoped could be heard above the bass thrum
of rock music issuing from somewhere toward the back of the house,
presumably Scott's bedroom.

The door connecting the kitchen to the garage came open behind
him.
He turned in time to see Wes clump through it. Seeing Dutch standing in
his kitchen, Wes laughed. "So you came after all. Figured you would
once you'd had time to think about those X-rated videos. I've been
putting antifreeze in Dora's car. Cold as it is—" Then his
smile
dimmed. "Something the matter?"

"Lilly had an accident."

"Jesus. Is she hurt?"

"I don't think so. I'm not sure."

Wes wrapped his hand around Dutch's biceps, guided him into
the
living room, and pushed him down onto the sofa. Dutch removed his hat
and gloves. His boots had tracked a sludge of melting ice and mud onto
the rug, but neither noticed. Wes poured a shot of Jack Daniel's into a
glass and carried it over to him.

"Take a slug of that, then tell me what's happened."