‘You shattered glass.’
‘Everybody will think I was drunk.’
‘I think they probably know better than that.’
Now those sleepy eyes were narrowing and focusing on me. ‘Is everything all right?’
‘It will be, I hope.’ Then, ‘I need to get going.’
‘You won’t forget I’m waiting here for you, will you?’
I smiled. ‘Probably not.’
Twenty-Four
Moonlight on the ground frost contrasted with the shadows of the windbreak, the line of pine that overpowered the small house and made it seem even more isolated and lonesome. Smoke coiled from the chimney and a large gray cat squatted on the small porch feigning feline indifference when he got a look at me. From inside the bungalow a voice spoke much too loudly.
After knocking, I looked around the yard. A car was in the drive. The voice inside continued to pound away.
I knocked again, this time with more force. I had to compete with the diatribe. I was surprised that the door was opened with no precautions of any kind. Even though this was the country, meth had changed everything from the good old days when people left their doors unlocked and offered to help strangers. Drug dealers carried guns now and traveled the gravel roads of rural America. It no longer made much news when a body or two was found in a ditch, fortunes of a drug deal gone wrong. In Missouri a few years back two nineteen-year-old males were found in a ditch with their hands tied behind their backs and their heads missing. Apparently Mexican drug cartels had made instructional videos of how to deal with drug enemies.
‘This better be good. I’m missing my show. So what the hell do you want?’
‘I’d like to speak with Mark if I could, Mrs Coleman.’
‘He isn’t here.’
‘His car is in the driveway.’
She pulled her dark terrycloth bathrobe tighter around her. A long, light-blue nightie showed beneath the bottom of the robe. ‘You ever hear of somebody going for a walk?’
The man on the radio was bellering now. ‘Why hasn’t the American Congress — and I emphasize the word “American” — why hasn’t the American Congress started impeachment proceedings against the only president we’ve ever had who wrote a secret letter to the head of the United Nations saying that his ultimate goal was to have the UN take over the governance of our nation? And have you noticed that our so-called president — who wasn’t born here, not that that seems to bother anybody in the so-called American press — in his arrogance wouldn’t even speak about this when a reporter from this show asked him about it?’
A cruel, mad smile crossed her crone lips. ‘Are you hearing that?’
‘Oh, I’m hearing it all right, Mrs Coleman.’
‘Probably scares you, doesn’t it? To know we’re on to you. Your Senator Logan’s a Communist and that makes you one, too, since you work for him. I told that to my Mark. He said he’s pretty sure neither you or Logan are Commies. But people have seen that letter, the one to the UN. He wrote it longhand, which was a mistake because Stan on the radio had a handwriting expert on the show and the expert said that once he got a chance to see the letter he’d know if it was the president or not. Stan told him he’d heard of two people who’d seen it and they both said it looked just like the president’s handwriting.’
‘Kind of made it official, huh?’
‘Go ahead and make fun — you’ll be in prison soon enough. You and your kind.’ And with that she started to shut the door.
But I put my hand on it and stopped her. She wasn’t strong enough to do anything about it. ‘You take your hand away right now or I’ll call the sheriff.’
‘I just want to ask you a question.’
‘I don’t answer your questions. I know what you are.’
‘When I was here before you said you could smell perfume on Mark the other night. You said it belonged to his wife.’
‘She’s a whore. All she wants is to get her hands on this house and then get rid of me so she can live here the rest of her life and not have to pay any rent.’
Of course. Now it was clear to me. The ex-wife was driven by her overpowering desire to steal this ramshackle bungalow and spend decades living in rural luxury. Providing the septic tank held fast.
‘Did you really smell perfume on him?’
‘On who?’
‘On Mark.’
‘I said I did, didn’t I? It was enough to make me sick.’
‘What did Mark say?’
‘He didn’t say anything. He just went in and washed up. Like he was in a hurry. I was hopin’ he was ashamed of himself for givin’ into her. That’s how she’ll get him back — sex. Whores always know how to handle men. Now take your hand off the door.’
I stepped back. She slammed it so fast and so hard I was surprised by the fury of it. Such a tiny woman.
I stayed on the small slab of porch for a couple of minutes. The problem I had was her state of mind. She was clearly suffering from some form of dementia so it was difficult to know what was fantasy and what was real. But to the scent of perfume on her son, she’d added that he seemed to be in a hurry to wash up. Maybe because I wanted to believe those two details I decided that they confirmed my suspicions.
Maddy had told me — following our initial conversation on the subject — that Tracy Cabot said that some ‘creep’ had been hanging around the cabin and that he made her nervous. Maddy knew she meant Mark Coleman and said he wasn’t a creep; just a confused vet whose wife had left him. Maddy said she considered that one more reason to despise the Cabot woman. Maddy then told me she’d had a number of conversations with Mark over the past year and liked him very much and that he was just a lost and lonely man searching for the solace of a woman. It wasn’t difficult to imagine the scene if he ever came into any kind of contact with somebody like Tracy Cabot.
I started to walk back to my car. I’d known she wouldn’t let me in the house where I suspected Mark was hiding. Now I’d pretend to leave, park down the road and then sneak back here. There was a chance that he would do me the favor of packing a bag, tossing it in his trunk and trying to flee. And I’d be waiting for him.
As I began to open my door, I heard, ‘Put your hands up in the air. I’ve got a rifle pointed right at you.’
Movies and TV have taught us that when you say things like that you’re supposed to snarl the words if you want to keep working in La La Land. But Mark had probably never taken any acting classes so when he said it, it was pierced with the same weariness I’d heard on my previous visit. And I knew the eyes would be the same, too. The ineluctable sorrow and frenzy of men and women who’d died psychically and spiritually on the battlefield who came home to trudge through their nightmare days.
‘You won’t shoot me, Mark.’
‘I don’t have much to lose.’
‘You’d just make things a lot worse for yourself. And this would be first-degree. I imagine the Cabot woman was on impulse. She say something ugly to you?’
My back was still to him but I hadn’t put my hands up.
‘I know I’m a freak. I could see it in her face. I was stupid enough to go in the cabin in the first place. I couldn’t help it. She was so beautiful. I thought that was all finished for me after my wife left, that I wouldn’t ever want another woman again. I wasn’t going to rape her or anything. I just wanted to look at her, was all. Not even touch her.’
‘I believe you, Mark.’ And I did.
‘She wasn’t scared or anything when she saw me. She thought I was some kind of handyman or something. At first, anyway. But she figured it out pretty fast I guess because she started making her remarks. I didn’t blame her. I shouldn’t have been there. I apologized and went to go out the back way — same way I’d come in — and I don’t know why she did it. She kept saying things about me and I guess because I was walking away she came over and grabbed my sleeve and that was when she said it, that one thing.’