Dad had given that to him years ago for Christmas. Colt had liked it so much, after the wrapping fell away he took one look at it, one look at Dad and he left the room. I knew why; men weren’t good with displaying that kind of emotion. Dad got choked up too and hid it behind a cough. Mom just started crying. Morrie had followed Colt.
I shook off that memory because it included me getting choked up too at the time and I didn’t want to do it now so I kept looking around.
In the room there was also a long, wide comfortable couch and armchair that I could tell wasn’t exactly top-of-the-line but it was nothing to sneeze at either. Sturdy lamps with muted shades on top of dark wood end tables, framed photos here and there. I wasn’t close enough to see what was in them but all of them were of people. It was a nice place.
Kitchen to the right, dining area in front of it over a bar. I could see the kitchen had been redone and well, though not recently, but it definitely wasn’t original and someone had put some money into it and I was guessing that someone was Colt and I was guessing that he did it for no-baby Melanie in the hopes that a kitchen would calm the baby craving which was something a man would do or, to be fair, something a caring man would do for a wife who was suffering an ailment he had no way to cure.
To the back, a double-wide opening that led to a den which was where Colt spent his time, I guessed, mainly because it was where he kept his big, flat-screen TV (which was top-of-the line but it was my experience men didn’t fuck around when it came to TVs). There were two big reclining chairs at angles to each other in front of the TV with a table between them, a stereo in the corner, loads of narrow CD shelves chock full of discs around the stereo, neon beer signs that had been retired from the bar on the walls and a fancy pool table at the side. The den was not original to the house, an extension Colt or his predecessor put in. I was guessing on a cop’s salary with that kitchen and the speedboat, the extension was there before Colt bought that house for Melanie.
To the left, a hall which I knew, because I’d been in plenty of houses like this, led to two bedrooms and a bath.
“You’re here,” Colt said and I looked from the doorway of the hall to him.
He’d come up from his crouch and grabbed my bag again. Wilson, my fluffy gray, had two kitty paws out of the box, two kitty paws in it and he was looking around, getting his new bearings and probably wishing he had opposable thumbs so he could hack me up, such was his current shitty life finding himself in four different houses in four different days, only one of them home.
I didn’t have time to comfort my cat, Colt was showing what he meant by his words by disappearing down the hall.
I followed. He walked into the room at the end.
When I arrived I saw Melanie was gone from here too. Blue walls. Dark blue bedspread. Baby blue sheets. Over the bed a fantastic sepia print of the inside of Harry’s Chocolate Shoppe, an old bar on the corner of the Purdue campus that Colt, Morrie and I spent a lot of time in. The shot was of the bar and its barback, devoid of people, just the wood, the stools, the shelves, the bottles, the mirror behind the bar, looking as old and cool as it was in real life.
I wanted that print, it was fucking fantastic.
But the bed was what captured my attention. It was huge. It had to be a California king.
Colt was a big guy but I reckon even he’d get lost in that bed. Definitely I would. I climbed into that behemoth they wouldn’t find me for a month.
He dropped my bag on the bed and looked at me.
“Sheets changed, bathroom’s through there.” He jerked his chin and I saw that there was a master bath, another extension likely put in pre-Colt and Melanie, through an open door. “You can make yourself at home later. I got somethin’ I need you to do.”
I looked from the bathroom door to Colt but he was already moving out of the room. Again, I followed.
Mom and Dad were in by then. Mom was already in the kitchen making coffee. Dad had Wilson’s empty case and was heading toward a side door in the kitchen, one that probably led to the garage behind the boat. Wilson was plucking his way across the carpet, sniffing, smelling Puck and not liking it. Except for Wilson and me, everyone was no stranger to this house. They were comfortable, at home, welcome and something ugly slid through me that I tried unsuccessfully to ignore.
Colt stopped by the dining room table.
“Got my yearbooks out, need you to look through.” He tapped the set of four large, hardbound, plastic covered books on the table and then he picked up a piece of paper and waved it once before setting it on top of the books. “This is a roster of Mrs. Hobbs’s geometry class, second period, your freshman year. Look at these names, look at the books, think about anyone who might fit the profile we got yesterday, not just names on this list, anyone.” His eyes caught mine. “Your Dad tell you about the profile?”
I nodded.
“Good. Look. Think. Call me.” He was talking in clipped, short sentences and it occurred to me he wasn’t wasting time with me and it occurred to me this was because he was hacked off about something, likely my comment earlier that morning, or me walking out on him when he was being a total asshole last night or the fact I was in his house at all.
He turned to Mom. “Gotta get to work.”
Mom came to the kitchen side of the bar, put her hands on it and said over it, “Why the hurry? I thought you were off the case.”
“Body found early this morning just inside the city limits.”
I drew in breath and it was so loud Colt turned back to me.
“Somethin’ else, looks like a drug sale gone bad.”
Mom shook her head. “I remember a time when we didn’t have homicides and the only drug around was weed.”
“City’s stretchin’, ten more years, it’ll engulf us,” Colt said. “City spreads, crime spreads.”
This was the ugly truth. There used to be miles and miles of cornfields between us and the city. For fifteen years, each time I came home more of those fields were gobbled up by strip malls and housing complexes. We still were protected by a thin shield of farmland but it was weakening fast.
Colt’s attention came back to me. “Scour these books, Feb. Don’t go into J&J’s until you’re done. I’ll expect a call by noon.”
I opened my mouth to say something but he was again moving, around the bar. He went into the kitchen and bent to kiss Mom’s cheek. Dad came in from the side and Colt gave him a wave and then a “Later,” and then he was gone.
“Where’s he goin’?” Dad asked the door Colt closed behind him.
“Work, some drug person was murdered last night,” Mom answered, moving right to the cupboard where the mugs were knowing exactly where to find them.
“Shit, I ‘member a time when worst thing that happened around here was a bar fight at J&J’s. Cops came, tossed the boys in a cell to dry out overnight and let their wives take ‘em home the next mornin’.” He went up to my Mom and kissed the side of her neck. “We got out just in time, Jackie, darlin’.”
Dad could say that again.
He and Mom got out just in time.
Though, bad news for me, when they got out, I got back in.
Mom was cleaning Colt’s house. Dad was over at Dee and Morrie’s doing something Dee needed done that Morrie never found time to do. I had my cell in my hand and I had to make the call.