Reilly 09 - Presumption of Death (27 page)

“Now you,” she said.

“Such a good day.” He lay down on his stomach on a fresh towel and she leaned over him, slick with oil, and rubbed him into as close as Ted could ever get to relaxation.

“Ted?”

“Mmm-hmm?” he said sleepily.

“Did you set those fires?”

His eyes didn’t open.

“I wouldn’t tell,” Megan said. “Remember a long time ago when we were talking in bed and you told me about-”

“I was a kid. It was hormones. Nobody died.”

“But you said you got off on the fires.”

“So?”

“I’ve been wondering. How come you’re not interested in me lately.” His back went stiff again.

He said, “I don’t want to talk about this. I was enjoying myself. You think I would be part of anything that caused someone to die?”

“Ted, that’s such an interesting way not to answer me. You know, I saw you looking at Danny one time, and I thought maybe… I thought maybe you might be bi. It’s perfectly fine to be bi, you know? I’m an accepting person.”

“So I’m bi and set fires and I killed Danny?” Ted’s muscles had hardened even more under her hand. He sat up and put his hand around her slippery neck. “What is this crap?”

She was suffocating. His hand was a vise.

“S-sorry,” she said.

“Get this, Megan. I am not bi.”

“Okay. I was wrong.” He took his hand away.

“What crap,” he said. “Ruining such a nice day. Hey. Listen. It’s my cell phone in the kitchen.”

He ran for it. When he came back into the bedroom, he got dressed again.

“I have to go out, one of the neighbors thinks she saw a prowler.” He hesitated, then said, “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I did that to you.”

“Sorry doesn’t cut it,” Megan said from the bed, but he was already gone.

On the corner of Siesta Court nearest Rosie’s Bridge, George and Jolene had been in bed for hours, but George couldn’t get to sleep. His feet didn’t hurt.

That was the problem. His feet didn’t hurt because he couldn’t feel them anymore.

He had knocked his left foot against the bathtub that morning and in spite of Jolene taking him to the doctor, it was going to ulcerate, he knew it. He opened one eye and looked at the clock on the bedstand. Midnight.

Not everybody gets to know what their death will be before it happens. His death was going to blind him and kill him off piece by piece. His dad had died of diabetes at forty-eight. They could keep you alive pretty near to a normal life span now. How old am I, sixty-three or sixty-four, he thought, and didn’t want to remember.

The main thing was how to leave Jolene enough money to raise the little girls properly, like ladies. Jolene never had asked for anything else but she wanted this, did she ever. They had some money in a bank account George had never told Jolene about, but it wasn’t enough. It wouldn’t keep them for a year. It wasn’t nothing the way prices of gas and clothes and food kept going up and up. Might as well just throw that money out the window.

Throw it out the window and let it catch on fire in the night and burn something that needed burning.

Out back, all that useless land covered with live oak, and he couldn’t even sell it because these damn yuppies came in and got theirs and then fought to keep him from getting his. It stung like fury. Here they were developing across the river, wanting to rip down the trees, stealing his views along with his peace of mind.

Had the fire stopped them? Maybe it was too early to tell. He had walked up there, in the meadowy area between the river and the handicapped place, before supper. They didn’t seem to be rebuilding the model home that burnt, not yet, and the land sure looked ugly where it burned.

And after that walk, he couldn’t feel his goddamn feet. He’d have to see the doc again in the morning.

Jolene might go twenty years with the four hundred thousand, which the realtor said he could have gotten on the Back Acre, had he been able to do what he wanted with his own damn property.

Too late now, he’d never get that ordinance changed. He’d done everything he could for the family, right up to things he couldn’t ever tell Jolene about. All he could do now was try to live a little while longer.

He heard the phone ring at the bedstand. Jolene beat him to it. “Oh, hi, Sam,” she said. “Everything all right?”

She handed it to him and he listened. Then he reached down for his slippers. “What is it?” she said.

“Sam thought he saw a prowler. I’m gonna meet him outside.”

She sat straight up in bed, her nightie slipping down her shoulder, pretty as a postcard. “I’ll go too.”

“You stay put. I mean it. It’s probably nothing. I’ll be right back.”

Tory was vomiting in the bathroom again. Darryl heard her wash her mouth out. She crawled back into bed, pulling the covers off him.

One thing after another.

“You’ll forget all about this in a couple of months,” he said. “Remember, you had all that trouble the first trimester with Mikey.”

Tory just rolled over to her side of the bed and gave him her back. She was mad at him for trying to talk to Elizabeth at the party, and he could make no explanation. He didn’t know what had possessed him. He’d only had a couple of Coronas.

Lately, he’d done several things he’d never dreamed he’d do. He’d been lucky, and here he was now, ready to push his luck again.

Tory had no idea that he’d gone to see Elizabeth. Fine, let her sleep, he just wanted to go to sleep too. Darryl rolled over in the opposite direction.

A song was running through his head, a song George sang, a cowboy ballad, and Darryl kept thinking about some of the words:

I’ve got a good life, and a good wife,

Too much to throw away…

They had an appointment with Pastor Sobczek next Thursday, and Darryl was afraid all his fantasizing was going to have to end at that point, because God would be involved, and God would come down, when it came to Tory and his soon-to-be-five kids and his commitment to love and honor forever, on the side of his marriage. That his love for Tory had turned to a mild, fond kind of feeling didn’t matter to God. That he wanted Elizabeth so bad he was breathing harder just thinking about it now didn’t matter.

God’s God. He doesn’t indulge these crazy emotions.

Elizabeth was beautiful and tragic. Debbie had whispered the whole story to Tory and Tory had told him, all about the car crash and the husband and daughter who died.

He couldn’t believe he’d actually gone to Elizabeth’s house. He’d talked with her, had the chance to drink her in. That’s what he had done, drunk her into his soul and made her part of him.

But he hadn’t expressed himself right. Words didn’t come easy to him. She’d thrown him out.

I could make her smile, he thought. I’d go to France with her if she wanted. She’d probably do something like that, go live in Paris. She had money and freedom. Wouldn’t life be fabulous with Elizabeth in Paris, free and rich?

A man had a right to do one thing before God intervened. He had a right to make his feelings fully known to the woman he loved, privately and without humiliating his wife. If he didn’t have that, well, he’d explode. And he’d hate his wife, because he’d blame her for not letting him at least say it once to the woman.

All my life I’ve done the things that were expected of me

And if I wasn’t happy, at least I wasn’t hurtin’ anybody

But I want her, I need her, she stole my soul away

And whatever choice I make, I’ll be sorry…

He slaved for Tory and the kids. Tory must know that. Sometimes he hated what he had to do, meeting the demands of his family and neighbors, working too hard and too much, day in and day out, the parties, the yard work, the troubles, but he did what he had to do, didn’t he? He took care of business just like he was supposed to, so if he wanted more out of life… well, didn’t he deserve it?

Bringing the blankets up to his nose, Darryl put his hands together under the covers. Silently, he said, Lord, am I allowed to speak to her one more time? Am I allowed this one thing? Should I?

The Lord may have answered him. But Darryl didn’t really want to hear what He said. Besides, the phone was ringing in the living room. Tory had finally gotten to sleep.

Confused, guilty, and scared all at once, Darryl rolled out of bed to find out who needed him now.

Out behind the Cowan house on this late night, Debbie thought she could see two silhouettes making their way behind the garage.

Sam wouldn’t! What if David came home! Of course not! She looked harder out the kitchen window, across Ben’s grassy yard, but now saw only shadows. Sam was at the office working late just like he had said. Sam would never do it to her again. He really did love her.

He tried so hard to take care of them, always making plans that came to nothing, through no fault of his own. He didn’t have the magic touch with money, which was too bad, but he was a good man. She knew he was hurting, with this awful development going up across the way and his job always at risk.

He was a person who needed to exercise power, and he had few enough opportunities. All the railing and noise he made about Green River, going to meetings, trying to get the neighbors up in arms, and he was like a parking ticket in a shredder. They shredded him and barely knew they had done it. No wonder he got so wild now and then… he had to prove to himself he was a man. She never doubted it, and she was sorry he did, that was for sure.

She would ask him again tomorrow if they could adopt a child from China. He didn’t like babies so much, so maybe a little one a couple of years old. House-trained, he would call it.

Now that the kids were grown the house was so empty. The dogs-they were just dogs, they weren’t like a human child who learns to talk to you and laughs and learns to be like you and who you can do something for…

The house was so quiet she would have enjoyed hearing mice in the walls. Debbie unloaded the dishwasher, then got her fuzzy old robe on, and flipped on the TV to see if Letterman had a funny monologue going, or something. The digital display told her it was past midnight.

When the ads came on, Debbie started worrying the way she did. This time she was worrying about the disabled people about to be evicted at Robles Vista. She could almost hear the noise of the bulldozer engines idling behind the trees, ready to tear up the ground and ruin their lives. We’re at war, she thought, but she couldn’t quite figure out who the enemy was. She only knew what everybody knew-that the fires in the Village were battles in the war.

At least she could bring those people in their wheelchairs some human comfort. She would buy doughnuts in the morning. She’d give a sackful to the cook at Robles Vista so that people could have them for brunch in the common room there.

Finally hearing Sam’s key in the door, she felt greatly relieved. Fires and Ruthie and Danny… all so sad… and frightening… so hard to understand. I love him, she thought with gratitude, getting up, and he loves me. We are so lucky and blessed…

21

“I WAS CONCERNED THAT THERE MIGHT be some danger leaving the tent unattended,” Paul said. Crockett had told him to meet him at the D.A.’s office at the Salinas courthouse this morning. Apparently his office was a movable feast. He hadn’t been available the morning before and Paul had spent the day looking into other matters.

“Explosives, guns, something kids might find. I wasn’t sure Coyote would come back, once Child Welfare and the D.A. got together and went after him. The remote location, his use of a rifle-these were factors in my decision.”

Crockett’s metal desk shook. About six feet from them, electricians were installing a ceiling fan in the hot office. The phone on the desk rang but Crockett didn’t answer.

He had a honker like a ship’s prow that you only noticed when he turned his head, thin lips, and a brow ridge that hung like a balcony over the etched face. The brown eyes never wavered. The bony casing of his head must house a lively brain.

Ticklish situation, Paul thought again. Crockett needed enough information to get an immediate search warrant, information Paul could provide. But Paul had made an unauthorized entry into the tent. Some unsympathetic joker might call it a burglary. For that reason, they had already discussed what he would say on the tape.

“So you went in. To secure the tent until the police could arrive,” Crockett said for the benefit of the tape. He continued to treat Paul with the wary respect of a former ally, but Paul still had to be careful. Deputy D.A.s, defense lawyers, and at least one judge might decide to review the record of this interrogation.

“Correct.” The recorder clicked, reminding Paul to stay succinct. He had already decided not to mention scraping something off Coyote’s van on an earlier visit. It had turned out to be nothing but mud, anyway.

“And what did you observe?”

“Two rooms. The outer room contained a cot with bedding and a camp-stove setup. Kitchen gear on a folding table. I observed a.22 rifle and a large buck knife in a leather sheath on the table.”

“Did you pick up the rifle?”

“I checked it, yes. Held it with my shirtsleeve. It contained three shells. I ejected them and put them in a baggie and put them in my pocket.”

“You carry baggies?”

“They make good pooper-scoopers.”

“Out in the woods you need that?”

“My friend, Ms. Reilly-it’s her dog. She’s one of those Sierra Club types. Find half-digested blueberries from a bear sitting in a pile on the road and she might even be moved to take a photo of it. Her own dog who never ate anything but dry kibble does it in the road, it’s gotta be picked up.”

“Sierra Club,” Crockett said, shaking his head. “So. This baggie. What condition was it in?”

“Unused,” Paul said. “I might add that the baggie has not been out of my possession since that time, nor have I touched the shells since that time.”

“And you’ve just handed over the three shells.” The baggie with the shells sat on the desk next to Crockett’s coffee cup.