Score a point for Page Drugs. All anyone, including myself, remembers is my father’s drinking and schizophrenia. It is easy to forget what a decent guy he was.
“That’s nice to hear.
Did you live out in the county?” I ask, searching for anything to build a connection with this woman. If she eventually can be persuaded to back off her story, I’ll be more than happy to make it easier for her.
“Moro,” she says.
“We rode the bus in. School consolidation was hard on a lot of people, but it was worth it for me. I never would have gotten to take physics or calculus.”
What did she need them for if she ended up a bookkeeper for a meat packing plant? On the other hand, what did I need them for either? If someone could have taken that time to teach me to balance my checkbook, I would have been better off.
“I admired y’all,” I say sincerely.
“It couldn’t have been any fun.” For kids out in the county, it was like being black in the early days of desegregation. They were the ones to have to give up their schools and teachers.
“Lots of kids in town were snobs,” she says.
“That didn’t make it any easier.”
“I got shipped off to Subiaco for high school,” I say, making it clear I wasn’t one of them before maneuvering the conversation around to a date when I can come see her. She tells me tomorrow after work will be a good time for her. As bookkeeper her hours are normally from eight to five.
I look down at the statement she gave the sheriff.
At the time of the murder she was volunteering at her tads’ school, which I assume is the private segregationist academy in Bear Creek. Her alibi has been corroborated by the principal’s secretary and the log kept by the school. Obviously, Willie’s murderer knew her schedule. I get her address and thank her for agreeing to talk with me. I hang up, knowing she doesn’t realize how hard I will have to go after her on cross-examination unless she changes her story.
As soon as I put the phone down, Dan lumbers into my office and sits unnaturally erect in the chair across from me. Still in pain from his skiing debacle, he has a nervous sheep dog look on his face that tells me he is up to something.
The chair creaks under his bulk. I thought now that he is eating his own cooking he would lose some weight. No such luck. He must be up to two hundred fifty, maybe more. I hope Brenda will leave him alone now that she’s kicked him out. They didn’t have kids, and he didn’t have any money.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
“I guess,” he mutters, “I have a date tonight.”
A date! No wonder he looks so miserable.
“Are you sure you’re up to it?” I ask solemnly.
“Women nowadays have all these weird positions they want you to try.
You could really hurt yourself if she gets going.”
“Are you serious?” he asks, alarmed.
“I’m too fat and sore to do anything but stare up at the ceiling. I was hoping we could go to Luby’s in the Mall and then watch a little TV.”
From the top drawer of my desk I take out a paper clip and straighten one end of it but resist the temptation to stick it in my ear.
“No way. As soon as she gets a sexual history, out come the creams, the oil, the leather-you name it.”
Dan slumps in his chair.
“You gotta be shitting me. For God sakes, this girl teaches the third grade and likes bird watching. She can’t be like that.”
I lean back in my chair.
“Teachers are the worst. They love the discipline. She’ll have you in a harness swinging from the ceiling before the night’s over.”
Dan grimaces at the thought.
“As fat as I am, it’d have to be from the bridge,” he says, nodding in the direction of the river, “and that might not even hold me.”
“Seriously, though, you gotta do better than Luby’s on the first date,”
I instruct him. Then grinning I say, “That’s married food. She’ll want some raw meat. Lots of protein. She’s got a long night ahead of her.”
Dan takes off his new bifocals and squints at a spot on the right lens I can see from across my desk. He rubs a tissue over the lenses, smearing them. The glasses now look as if his dog, a mutt he found limping down the street in front of his apartment, has sneezed on them.
“Maybe I should have just shot myself,” he says, his voice morose, “instead of letting Brenda file for divorce.”
I relent. He sounds too serious.
“It won’t be all that bad,” I say.
“Tell me about her. If she’s in her seventies, you’ll probably be pretty safe.”
He gives up on the glasses and massages the back of his neck while he considers his answer.
“She says she’s forty.” He reaches into his wallet and hands me a picture. A brunette, the woman isn’t bad looking at all, and actually looks a lot younger than any forty-year-old I know.
“How’d you meet her?” I ask.
Dan leans forward and reclaims the photograph.
“Well, actually I haven’t yet,” he mumbles.
“This is through one of those computerized dating services.”
“Tell me you’re not serious,” I beg, amazed he would spend what little money he has on a blind date. Yet we both know Dan doesn’t do well with women he finds on his own. Brenda was a ball-buster from hell, and a few months ago the hooker client he was in love with allegedly abused her kid by holding her down in a tub of hot water. As a favor to Dan I represented her in juvenile court and got her off, but whether she did it, I’ll never know.
“She sounds pretty nice on the phone,” Dan says defensively.
“I think we have a lot in common.
She likes to eat, watch movies on TV.
Besides, if this doesn’t work out, they guarantee ten more dates.”
Ten? I grit my teeth to keep from saying something sarcastic.
“How much does all this cost?” I ask, trying not to laugh out loud.
Knowing Dan’s tastes, I wonder if this woman is a blind mud wrestler.
His divorce won’t be final for a while, and here he is trying to get involved with someone else. Yet, how in the hell can I say anything?
I’m more obsessed with women than Dan will ever be. I even called Amy last Sunday to check on Jessie and ended up spending a half hour on the
phone with her.
“Lemme see, a total of almost a thousand bucks,” Dan says, studying his checkbook, which he has tugged from the inside of his suit coat.
“I finally settled the one personal injury case I’ve had for a couple of years. I should be saving the money to pay some taxes, but it’s hard to make myself put any aside.”
“Tell me about it,” I say, more than happy to agree on this subject.
The government can’t come within hundreds of billions of dollars of balancing its budget and yet it has the nerve to demand that people like Dan and I try to pay as we go.
“Does she get a picture of you?” I ask.
Dan chuckles.
“Not a recent one,” he says.
“I didn’t want her to think I was trying to get out of the nursing home for a night on the town. I kind of fudged and said I was divorced, too. If this works out, I hope she doesn’t read the paper much.” He pats his rib and says solemnly, “Anyway, she can’t be into anything too bizarre. She said she can see my dimples in the picture they sent her and that she likes them.”
It’s not love that makes the world go round; it’s lies.
“You’re in big trouble, then,” I kid him, wondering if any of the information they’ve exchanged is true. Dimples? Why not? Women have loved men for far worse reasons. I haven’t seen Dan’s dimples in a while. He hasn’t had much to smile about. Maybe this will turn out to be the love of his life. Brenda certainly wasn’t.
“The woman I’m interested in,” Dan says, rubbing his sore ribs, “is the old girlfriend in Bear Creek. Now, there’s a hot mama. Did you do any good with her this weekend?”