Gray Matter (31 page)

PJ noticed that most of the houses on the street had large, rolling trash cans at the ends of their driveways. It was obviously trash collection day. The rolling cans were identical and probably furnished by the city, St. Ann, or at least rented to the residents. They were the type that hooked onto the trash truck and could be raised overhead and dumped automatically. Hampton didn’t have one, or if he did, he had chosen not to put out the trash today.

She sat with her hand on the door handle for several long minutes until she made up her mind. Peter Hampton, if he was the killer, had been to her house twice. It was about time she visited his.

PJ got out of her car and walked toward the house. Glancing around nervously, she went down the driveway. There, behind some bushes which hid the area from the street, were a couple of old-fashioned battered metal trash cans. Evidently Hampton didn’t go in for the rolling kind. PJ knew that she couldn’t be seen easily from the street, but there was a house only a few feet away, and a curtained window looked out over the area where the trash was. She stared at the window. The curtains were pulled tight and there was no movement to suggest that someone was peeking out.

She was about to do something that would probably get her in trouble with Schultz, and for which she had no good excuse if she were caught in the act.

She was going to root through Hampton’s trash.

She put out her hand and rested it on the lid of the nearest trash can. What if there was something terrible inside, bloody clothes or bags of brains tossed aside to be secretly disposed of later? Is that why Hampton hadn’t put his trash at the curb?

Glancing again at the window of the house next door, she lifted the lid. The can was only half full. She leaned over to investigate and caught a glimpse of something hemispherical and pale, and almost dropped the lid in her anxiety, clanging it against the rim of the can. Taking a better look, she saw that it wasn’t a brain after all, just discarded cantaloupe halves, their sections neatly excised and the shells squeezed for the pulpy juice. In fact, the can contained only fruit and vegetable waste, no household trash or meat scraps. Banana peels, limp lettuce leaves, orange rinds, apple cores—there was a pungent smell of rotting produce, made worse by the heat of the day trapped inside the metal container. Even more terrible than the smell were the maggots. Like moist fattened grains of rice, they were moving on top of the produce waste and even, to PJ’s disgust, on the inside surface of the trash can lid she was holding. Evidently the can served as a compost bin. Looking out into the backyard, PJ spotted a small garden plot and a mound of leaves and old grass clippings near the fence, kept in place by a short circular structure made of chicken wire.

Maybe her murder suspect was simply an organic gardener.

She couldn’t bring herself to dip her arms into the muck, squirming as it was, and stir it to see what was underneath, and there was nothing handy to use, no stick or shovel. She replaced the lid, feeling rather foolish, and opened the next can. Inside she found the discarded things that might be in anyone’s trash: empty cardboard tubes from toilet paper and paper towels; junk mail, unopened; wadded up tissues; a cereal box; Styrofoam trays used to package meat from the grocery store; receipts; soup cans; newspapers. She noted that Hampton did not bother to recycle anything except organic matter. She dug in gingerly, regretting that she didn’t have any gloves with her and thinking that Schultz probably had gloves with him at all times, probably had them taped to his chest or something. She removed a few items and set them in the lid, which she had put on the ground next to the can. She was disappointed. It looked as though all she was going to get from this expedition was an urgent need for a shower.

Something small and shiny caught her eye. As she groped for it, it eluded her fingers and slipped further down into the can. Reluctantly, she upended the can onto the driveway, figuring that either the neighbors would call the police or the red truck would pull into the driveway, trapping her. She hurriedly sorted through the pile, putting the items back into the trash can. After a couple of minutes, she saw the shiny object which had attracted her. It was a small plastic tube, about two and a half inches long and as narrow as a pencil. There was a red plastic cap on one end. Inside was a small white object, generally cylindrical in shape, barely a half-inch long. It had dull red stains on it.

It took her a while before she was able to identify the object inside the tube: it was the stub of a styptic pencil, used to stop the bleeding from cuts or scrapes from a razor. Her ex-husband Steven had kept one in his side of the medicine cabinet. Years ago, when PJ had nicked her ankle while shaving her legs, she had grabbed Steven’s styptic pencil. Unpleasantly surprised by the chemical sting when she touched it to the bleeding area, she had pulled it away from the cut and put it back in the cabinet. She held a tissue to her ankle until the bleeding stopped. She had never used the styptic pencil again. As she recalled, that “pencil” was a white cylinder, pointed on top like a crayon. The one she held in her hand now was just a nub; the rest must have been used, broken off, and discarded earlier.

She held the tube up and peered at the red stains. Blood had soaked into the white material: the killer’s blood that would match the blood earned by Sheila’s fingernails and Megabite’s claws.

She put it carefully into the pocket of her shorts and stuffed the rest of the trash back in the can, making sure that the lids were placed lightly on top, as they were before. She looked at her watch. It was five after two, time for her to leave. The cook should be on his way home.

When she turned in the styptic pencil to the lab, she was given a rough time. It wasn’t a formally recorded piece of evidence and the weekend crew didn’t want to be accused of doing private work for somebody. It took all of her persuasive skills, plus liberal dropping of Schultz’s name, to arrange for a simple blood typing. After accepting the sample, the supervisor groused about PJ storing it in a sealed container without properly air-drying it first; the blood might have rotted. Also, the container itself might have fingerprints on it; had she used gloves? PJ asked her to do the best she could, and then left, her enthusiasm for the find waning. There was still time to do some more painting before heading to Mike’s house for dinner.

On her borrowed ladder, she worked steadily, rhythmically applying the paint. She put her thoughts about the case, including today’s potential bombshell, on hold while she explored her feelings about Mike.

Was she falling for him? They had spoken on the phone numerous times but met only twice: once for lunch when she picked up the VR equipment, and the other time when he brought a journal article to her office. He could have faxed it, but he had come in person and lingered, finally being evicted from his folding chair when PJ had to go to a meeting with Lieutenant Wall.

She slapped away at the paint, her body responding to every sensation of wind and sun as if they were loving hands on her skin. By the time she had showered and dressed, she felt as though her body was made up of vibrating strings.

Schultz banged on the door for the third time. “Open up, son, it’s me,” he said loudly. Finally he heard the snick of the safety bolt, and the door opened to the width of a security chain. Rick, bleary-eyed, peered through the opening.

“Oh, it’s you, Pop. Come on in.”

The apartment smelled of stale beer and staler pizza. There was clutter everywhere, from old newspapers and magazines to empty beer cans. An old TV was playing but the sound was turned off. Schultz shook his head in disgust. He came into the living room, looked around for a place to sit, and ended up shoving a pile of dirty laundry off the couch and onto the floor to make room.

“Didn’t I tell you to get this place cleaned up?”

“Some of this stuff belongs to Frank. He’ll come back for it sometime, so I’ve got to leave it here.” Frank was the roommate that Schultz had kicked out.

“Put it out in the hall. Christ, you could at least take the trash out.”

“Yeah. Well, I’ve been busy.”

Schultz didn’t respond to the provocation. He was here to deal with something more important than sanitation. “So how’s the job going?”

“OK, I guess. I don’t see what good it’s doing me, though. The pay is really crappy.”

Rick’s trial was two months away. In the meantime, released on bond, he was working as a dishwasher in a downtown restaurant, on the evening shift, from six until midnight. Schultz had insisted that he get a job to pay his own way as a condition of bailing him out. Rick had decided that he would rather be a dishwasher and live in his own apartment than accept the hospitality of the state of Missouri until the trial date. Now that Rick’s mother was out of the picture, he didn’t have a lot of choices. She had been forking over a substantial part of Schultz’s take-home pay so that her little darling didn’t have to get a job. That had left him with enough leisure time to get himself in trouble. Since she had split, apparently the little darling was going to have to fend for himself.

“Of course it’s crappy. The good it’s doing is getting you to show some responsibility for yourself.”

Rick clearly didn’t have a good opinion of that novel concept, but at least he kept it to himself.

“Want a beer?” Rick said. “How’s Mom? Have you talked to her lately?”

“I’ll take a soda, if you’ve got anything that isn’t diet. Your mom is living with your Aunt Claire in Chicago. She doesn’t have a whole lot to say to me. Or to you, either. It looks like your cash cow has dried up.”

“I guess you two aren’t going to get back together.”

“Nope.”

“Mom doesn’t want to talk to me?”

“Nope again. Actually, you were the one thing we managed to talk about on the phone. She said that she had made plenty of mistakes with you in the past, covering for you, sticking up for you, and accepting your excuses. She thought she was doing the right thing by you, but you repaid all of her tolerance and support by getting in serious trouble with the law. She said it was my turn to see what I could do with you.”

Rick took this complacently, as if he expected it. That led Schultz to think he must have known that Julia would eventually realize that she was doing more harm than good with her approach. Perhaps there had already been the rumblings of trouble between them.

Rick opened the refrigerator and took out a bottle of beer for himself. “Cream soda’s all I have. Frank used to drink that stuff.”

“Now you see why I kicked him out. I’ll pass.”

“What’s new on my case?”

Here it comes.
“Nothing.”

The tension in the room moved up a notch, to somewhere just below open warfare.

“Did you talk to that guy Ricardo? Maybe he didn’t see what he thought he saw?”

“Ricardo’s a good officer. He saw you peddling dope, and that’s exactly what you were doing.”

Rick smiled ingratiatingly. “You know it and I know it and Ricardo knows it, but the judge, he doesn’t have to know it, right?”

“Wrong. You’re getting sent up for this, son.” The muscles in Schultz’s shoulders tensed. Rick was twenty-five years old, fast and strong. His chest and arms would frighten away all but the most determined mugger. He had a narrow waist and a flat abdomen, and he liked to show it off by wearing cutoff T-shirts that bared his belly. His hair was brown and thick as Schultz’s had been up until about the age of thirty, when his hair had thinned drastically and turned mostly gray—a double whammy, all in the space of a single year. Rick had the same brown eyes, too, so that looking into his eyes was like looking into a mirror for Schultz, except for the difference wrought by years of experience with the sadness and madness of the world.

Schultz wasn’t sure he could take him, not with his legs like this. He studied his son’s face, saw disbelief.

“You’re kidding, right? You don’t mean I’d actually go to jail?”

“That’s exactly what I mean. You’ll do a few months, maybe six.” Schultz kept his voice level and calm. Rick was starting to raise his, as anger spread over his face like a summer thunderstorm over Kansas prairie.

“My dad’s a cop, and I’m going to jail,” he said, sarcasm twisting his mouth. “You don’t even care enough about me to fix this, to keep me out of prison. You bastard!”

Rick swung his arm, and Schultz started to rise from the couch. Too slow. Too slow. The beer bottle that Rick had been holding went flying by Schultz’s face and crashed into the wall behind him. His face livid, Rick aimed his fist at Schultz’s midsection just as Schultz got to his feet. Schultz took the punch, yielded to it, absorbed it, felt himself double over as pain shot through his gut. He braced his legs and came up fast, flexed his right arm, then punched it forward so that the heel of his hand connected squarely under Rick’s chin. Rick’s head snapped back and he struggled for balance. Schultz drew a deep breath and moved in close, grabbing Rick’s arm and twisting it forcefully behind his back. From years of experience, he knew exactly how much pressure to apply to keep the pain going without popping the shoulder joint. He leaned close, his lips a couple of inches from Rick’s ear.

“You listen to me, you little shit,” he said in a cold whisper, “Papa’s not going to fix things for you anymore, and Mama’s not going to kiss it and make it better. It’s over. You break the law, you pay. When you get out, I’ll still be here and I’ll make sure you behave like Joe Citizen.” He pushed Rick’s elbow a little higher, eliciting a groan. “I’m gonna ride you. I’ll sit on your ass for as long as it takes. You may not know it now, but that’s what caring about you means.”

He shoved Rick away from him, hard, and the young man fell to the floor. “Damn, that felt good,” Schultz said. “I should have done that ten years ago.”

“You bastard!” Rick spat out. “You bastard.”

“Well, son, at least your stay in jail will do wonders for your vocabulary.” Schultz turned and left, slamming the door behind him before Rick could see the tears building in the corners of his eyes.