Prudence Couldn't Swim (2 page)

“No. I just found her in the pool when I came home. She can't swim. She's my wife.”

“Keep trying CPR, our team is on the way. Your name, sir?”

“Calvin Winter, like the season.”

“Thank you, Mr. Winter. Have a great … I mean thank you.”

In the flatlands of Oakland where I grew up there was a fifty-fifty chance an ambulance would come if you called them. If they did arrive, it took at least half an hour. The opulent hills were different. Within five minutes the siren was whining in my driveway. I thought about giving the cops a different name. I had a Colorado license in the name of Edgar Winter. I could tell them my brother Calvin had just left. Probably not a good idea.

The doorbell chimed “Oh give me a home …” I don't know why in hell I chose that tune.

I put away the whiskey bottle. As I let them in I realized I couldn't remember how to spell Prudence's maiden name. Something long
starting with an “m.” But of course her passport said “Deirdre Lewis.” And she was Deirdre on our marriage certificate. I'd stick with that.

Three medic uniforms filled the doorway with navy blue. The two in front held pieces of equipment—a resuscitator, a medical bag, a fold-up gurney. A huge flashlight dangled from the belt of the freckle-faced linebacker body who looked the like the team leader. At least they weren't cops.

“She's over there,” I said, pointing to the lumpy green blanket by the pool. “I think you're too late. So was I.”

Freckle Face charged across the room and out onto the patio. They unraveled the blanket, felt the neck for a pulse, then lifted the eyelids.

“No pulse,” Freckle Face told the others. “Try the jump start.”

His much taller Hispanic partner with “Guerrero” stitched on his shirt lined the resuscitator up. A few feet away the third team member, a young Asian woman, was unfolding the gurney.

Within a few seconds Prudence sprung into arcs like a flopping fish. I couldn't watch. Then Freckle Face tried breathing into her mouth like I'd done, only he did it a lot longer. Finally Guerrero disconnected the machine and laid the blanket back over her Prudence.

“I'm sorry, sir,” said Freckle Face, “there's nothing we can do.” He touched me lightly on the shoulder but avoided eye contact.

I could never relax with this many uniforms in my presence, especially at a time like this. These people were the gentle, human side of officialdom. Still, they were too clean, too soulless. I worked hard to keep such people out of my life. I always had something to hide. Even when I didn't, I felt like I did.

I thought of offering them a cup of coffee. Is that what a suburban husband in grief would do? I had no idea.

“Put her on the gurney,” said Freckle Face, “and load her in.”

He looked at me for a second.

“I'm sure she died before you arrived, sir. There's nothing you could have done. I'm so sorry.”

The truth was I was glad I hadn't arrived too much earlier. The killer could have just wasted me too.

“What about the police?” asked Guerrero. “They might want to look around.”

“What about them?” said Freckle Face. “They're welcome to do what they gotta do. The woman drowned. No sign of a struggle. The gentleman doesn't need her body here any longer. My call.”

“Sir,” Freckle Face added turning to me, “the police will come to question you. It's routine.”

“Okay,” I replied. I wasn't accustomed to polite explanations from authorities. I guess this was how they did it in the hills.

“I just came home and found her floating in the pool,” I said. “She can't swim.”

“How were you acquainted with the victim?” asked Freckle Face.

“She's my wife.”

He went silent.

“I'm so sorry,” he said, pausing for the appropriate few seconds until the next question. Well-trained, sensitive, but still an alien uniform.

“Your name, sir.”

“Calvin Winter.”

“Like the season?”

“Exactly.”

Freckle Face had some kind of computer with a pen attached. I guess the thing could read his writing. I saw him recording my name and address, the time of day. Computers were almost as foreign to me as uniforms in my living room. I'd used e-mail, visited some porn sites, and tracked down a few women seeking husbands. That was about it. The truth was, I hadn't moved much beyond programming my old VCR and sometimes I still had to read the manual to do that.

I told him her maiden name was Lewis, that she rarely used Winter. I decided not to tell him that “Lewis” was made up, just like almost everything else about Prudence's life.

His last question had something to do with “grief counseling.” Freckle Face told me he knew the bereavement process could be “difficult, especially when it involved a spouse.”

I declined the offer. The only help I'd need was a case of Wild Turkey. That and a bit of weed. Red Eye would take care of all that.

I thanked them politely as their little caravan retraced its tracks and removed Prudence's physical presence from my life forever. They left me with the phone number and the website of the morgue to deal
with funeral matters. I had no idea what a website had to do with a funeral.

As soon as they were out the door I reconnected to the Wild Turkey, then got Red Eye at Philly Joe's. The noise from the gymnastics competition on one of the TVs was too loud to explain what happened.

Red Eye promised to get to my place within an hour. He was waiting for the results of his favorite event, the parallel bars, or the “ball crunchers” as he called them.

The police got there before Red Eye. By that time I was almost catatonic from the Wild Turkey. The pair of them rattled and jingled their way across my living room. They didn't even take off their hats before they planted their black-uniformed butts on my sofa, a place Prudence and I had occasionally enjoyed an evening together. She liked to watch old tearjerkers like
Terms of Endearment
and
Love Story.

The talker was Officer Carter, a stout-bellied veteran who no doubt felt more comfortable on a barstool than in my elegantly furnished living room. Offer him a Bud, a Big Mac, and a few porn videos and he'd figure he'd died and gone to heaven.

His partner, McGee, was the sniffer, a hyperactive weasel who looked here, there, and everywhere for clues of something. He walked around the pool, pulled out some type of high-powered chalking device and drew an outline of where I told him Prudence's body laid.

“Why did you drag her inside?” he asked. Apparently I hadn't hosed down the deck as well as I thought.

“She was my wife,” I said, “I couldn't stand seeing her outside in plain sight of God and everybody.”

“Then you dragged her back outside?”

“Yeah, I just wasn't thinking too clearly. She was my wife.” He didn't seem satisfied but cops rarely do.

As the Weasel got down on his hands and knees to peak under the sofa, Carter let loose a gigantic sneeze. His effort to get his elbow in front of his nose was a second too late. The spray arched out across my carpet.

Once he'd finished dragging his sleeve across his nostrils, Carter told me they needed a picture of “the deceased.” He said it was standard operating procedure.

I knew that was a lie but I cooperated as politely as I could manage. Anything to keep them from running my ID. The latest photo of Prudence I had came from her thirtieth birthday party. She'd worn a skintight black number with a neckline that finished at her jewel-studded belly button.

“Nice tits,” Carter whispered to McGee as his finger ran down Prudence's body. He looked back at me.

“She was a beautiful woman,” he said, “if you don't mind me saying so.”

I did mind but I had too much to hide to let him know how I felt. They'd have to start pulling up the rugs and the floorboards to find my stash but it hadn't stopped them before. Back in the eighties they'd knocked holes in my bedroom wall after the dogs went crazy next to my dresser. Luckily for me I'd taken out all the dope they day before. I didn't mess with that stuff anymore. But the dogs still might find something.

They asked me a few more questions and the Weasel suggested they'd come back if they had any more concerns. I told them they were always welcome, but they just didn't look all that interested.

Carter managed a departure handshake.

“I know this must be hard on you,” he added. “Contact us if you think of anything else we should know.”

As soon as they left I went to the cupboard under the kitchen sink and found my can of Re-Nu, a “miracle cleaner” for sofas, chairs and carpets. The late-night purveyors of the product boasted that you could pour a glass of red wine on a white couch, spray on Re-Nu, wait for five minutes and scrub the stain away like “a few loose grains of sand.” I'd called the 800 number the first time I saw the commercial. The three cans of Re-Nu plus a set of steak knives were on my doorstep the next morning. I gave the steak knives to Luisa, my Salvadoran house girl who came every Tuesday. Without Luisa I'd be living in chaos.

I sprayed half the can on the spots where the cops sat, then waited the required five minutes. A few strokes with a scrub brush wiped away their aura but I still felt defiled. No aerosol could erase the day. I was drunk, wanted to cry or scream. I couldn't figure out which. But then I didn't really know how to cry. If someone had murdered Prudence, and they probably had, I had to be next in line.

Red Eye rang the bell just as I'd popped a new bottle of Wild Turkey. Good timing is one thing we have in common.

“What's up, boss?” he asked with a cheery smile. His boy must have scored big on the parallels. Probably wearing red tights. Red Eye had on his usual Adidas tracksuit with a Chicago Bears cap. Although Red Eye and I were Raider Nation diehards, he had a thing about the Bears. He could talk all day about Walter Payton, Gale Sayers, Dick Butkus. Then there was Willie Galimore, Red Eye's favorite Bear. Red Eye said Galimore would have been the greatest running back of all time if he hadn't died in a car crash. The Bears were a perfect fit for Red Eye. He was truly a bear of a man. Even though he shaved all the way down to the neckline of his T-shirt, he couldn't totally suppress the jungle of brown hair that covered him front and back. He was just a little taller than me but had a body like a grizzly—pumped up from years of bar work and pushing iron on various prison yards. Of course his muscles had softened a little, especially since he'd started this competitive eating thing. Two years before he'd won the Greeley, the West Coast's most prestigious hot dog-eating contest.

“You want a drink?” I asked.

“Not until you tell me what's going on.”

“Prudence drowned in the pool this morning.”

“I'll serve myself,” he said walking toward the bottle of Wild Turkey. “Sorry, bro.”

He poured me another, then went back to the bar, squatted down and opened the half fridge.

“I need ice,” he said. He broke open a tray and dropped three cubes in his glass. I heard them crack.

“Sorry, bro,” he repeated. “What happened?”

“I came home and found her floating face up in the water,” I said. “She couldn't swim.”

“Then how did she get in the pool?”

“You tell me.”

“What did the police say?”

“Not much. I told them she drowned, that she couldn't swim and they left. One of them looked at her picture and said she had nice tits.”

“The piece of shit,” he said, mimicking the sidearm motion of sliding a knife under someone's ribs.

He kept drinking and pouring for both of us. Whiskey flowed easier for Red Eye than words of condolence.

“Prudence didn't jump into that pool by herself,” I said. “She had help.”

“She have enemies?” he asked. “Was she using?”

“We went our separate ways. That was the arrangement. But a woman like that always has enemies. Probably left a trail of jealous bastards from here to London.”

“She ever mention any?”

“We didn't talk about her men. I knew she had them. That's all. I can't believe this shit. I'm like the heroin dealer hooked on his product. I just couldn't let her go.”

“She was a beauty,” he said. “Never met a black girl like her. Or any girl for that matter.”

He went back to the whiskey bottle. I could count on Red Eye. He had nondescript talents, just like me. I'd often used him to transport my various commercial goods, human and otherwise. He was totally reliable and with the aid of a few tablets he could drive thirty-six hours without a rest. The jury was still out on how he'd perform as a bereavement counselor.

“You've got to find out who did this,” he said, “for your own peace of mind. Our property is our manhood, bro. If we let people get away with this shit, we're nothing.” He knocked back the whiskey and let out a monumental belch. “I'm ready when you need me,” he said.

“Thanks, bro. It means a lot.” I was telling the truth. I had no one else but revenge wasn't really on my mind. I was trying to live the square life. I'd even gone to a couple of anger management classes.

“Maybe you need to chill for a few days,” said Red Eye. “Go away. Get your mind off this. Then we start.”

Getting away was a good idea but I couldn't think of any place to go. I'd never really gone on a vacation and it felt like the wrong time to start thinking of holiday packages.

“How about Reno?” he said. “Or Chumash?”

“Nah. I'll stay here. A few bottles of Wild Turkey and some videos and I'll be good to go.”

“Careful, Cal. You don't know who you're dealing with. There's some straight jay-cats out there these days.”

We left it like that. Red Eye promised to come back the next day. A couple minutes after he left, the cops came back. Two cars this time. They got out with their hats on and guns drawn. So much for my reputation with the neighbors.