Forty-three years or a week... Both were nothing. Finger snaps of time.
Desmond played some more notes. It was a tune Moll didn’t remember but it had something to do with one of the rebellions in Ireland, fighting the British for independence. A girlfriend had once turned Moll on to the idea of reincarnation and he sort of believed it. He had suggested Desmond might have been a rebel in a former life.
The man had considered this and liked the idea. He asked Moll who he thought he’d been. Maybe Jack the Ripper.
But Moll had seen some movies and TV shows and he had said no. Jack had killed for lust and was sloppy. Moll killed for money and was organized and neat. Making bodies was, to him, like painting faux furniture.
It was all art. No difference.
Desmond cocked his head. “So? Jean?”
Moll hesitated a moment. “Gone.”
“Oh, you didn’t say.”
“It just happened.”
“I’m sorry about that, man. She seemed okay.” Desmond played a riff, then cut a glance to the side. “She gone gone?”
Took Moll a moment. “What? No, no. Of course not.”
Though it wasn’t an unreasonable question.
Desmond was happy finding satisfaction at truck stops. Moll wanted something more with a woman. The settling-down part that his mother used to mention. He could nearly picture the future. He would hunt and work and paint furniture and return home to help her, whoever she might be, fix up the house, go to county fairs, prepare dinners and eat them not in the driver’s seat of a Ford van but at a real dining room table. He’d help her with the dishes and pick a good wine. He was determined to teach himself the subject.
Jean, a voluptuous brunette who’d been a manager at Huxley’s Pub, had been the sort who might fit the bill.
But she was also smart and observant, which defined the dilemma. Smart and observant people had the potential to be significant liabilities in his line of work.
Why do you have to deliver the furniture yourself? You could ship it.
Did you cut yourself? Is that blood in the van?
Et cetera.
So, a conundrum.
He would get it worked out someday. Meanwhile he liked painting. He liked making bodies and liked finding creative ways for them to go away forever.
Someday...
Desmond asked, “She still in the area? Jean?”
Moll said, “She moved back to Dubuque.”
“That’s a funny name.” Desmond shrugged. “But I’m one to talk. Mine you don’t hear much.”
Moll offered an indistinct grunt. Thank you, Mother and Father, so very much. They’d believed she was delivering a girl, to be named Molly, after a relative. Oh, damn. It’s a boy. Let’s improvise. He recalled when a classmate said, “Hey, isn’t ‘moll’ what they called some slut, you know, a gangster’s whore?”
The kid was out of school for the rest of the semester, after being injured in a freak accident whose nature he simply could not recall. And no one ever made fun of Moll’s name again.
Moll’s phone hummed. He read the words and smiled. “Dawndue.”
“What?”
“Merritt found somebody. We’ve got an address.” He started the engine and typed on the GPS screen. The men buckled up. Moll said, “And speaking of weird names? His is Villaine. Spelled different, but like a bad guy in a movie.”
“Okay,” Desmond conceded. “He wins.”
56
Allison Parker and Hannah joined Frank, who was clearing the island, moving his computers and documents to a cluttered desk in the corner of the kitchen.
Frank asked, “Soda? Coke? I have diet. Not that you need it.”
The girl came close to smiling. “Yeah, diet.”
He got one for her.
“That’s the biggest refrigerator I’ve ever seen.”
Frank lifted an eyebrow to Parker and picked up a bottle of red Italian wine. He’d be thinking that after Jon’s problem she would abstain. She didn’t drink much but wanted some now, needed some. She nodded.
He opened the bottle and filled two glasses. They sipped.
Frank was heating tomato sauce on the six-burner stove. It simmered, bubbling gently. To Hannah he said, nodding toward the stove, “In Italy they don’t call this sauce. It’s gravy.”
“Smells cool. Why’d you guys break up?”
No one did non sequiturs like teenagers.
Parker said, “I moved to a different company, Marty’s.”
“And I went to Chicago. We both decided long distance wouldn’t work. Besides I’m not sure how compatible we would’ve been. I’d’ve forced her to go traipsing through the woods to go quote ‘shopping’ for dinner.”
“Instead of doing it the right way: Whole Foods.”
Hannah offered a fraction of a smile.
The water was at a rolling boil and he eased fresh fettuccine into the pot. “Well, the feast’s almost done. Hannah, any chance you could help me set the table?”
“Where’s the stuff?”
“Over there.” He pointed to a massive mahogany buffet at the far end of the kitchen.
“Everything’s big here.” She was looking at a dining room table that would seat sixteen or eighteen people.
“We’ll eat there.” He nodded at a round kitchen table near the island. He moved aside engineering diagrams. “I like this better. The rest of the house? It’s a like an interior designer cave. You two eat in the kitchen much?”
“Yeah, usually. Our dining room’s too dark. We’re renting and we can’t put new fixtures.” A glance at her mother. “Or paint.”
The girl’d been taught home manners and in a few minutes had plates, place mats, silver and napkins properly arranged on the glass-top table.
Frank mixed the sauce in the pasta and removed some grated cheese from the refrigerator. Then from the big oven came a loaf of Italian bread, its crust crisp and alluring. He pulled a mitt onto his left hand and used a serrated knife to cut slices. These went into a bowl. He removed a salad from the fridge and took several different dressings from a door rack.
Together, the three of them moved everything to the table.
He took one seat and pointed to those next to him, Parker on the left and Hannah to the right.
She realized then why he wanted to eat here and why he wanted to take the seat he had. So he would have an unobstructed view of the long driveway and the dirt road that ran in front of the house.
She studied it too, and expanded her glance to take in the long rifle in the corner by the door.
Then told herself: Relax. Jon couldn’t possibly know about this place.
They began to eat. Conversation meandered, from the energy industry, to climate change, to politics, to the scenery, to life out in the country, to Hannah’s school, to her uncanny ability to solve math problems. Parker supposed she’d want to talk about her passion — her selfies project — but had the good sense to keep mum on that topic.
When they were nearly finished, Frank froze, glass halfway to his mouth. He set it down.
“I want you two to go into the parlor.” His voice was commanding, far different from his laconic tone.
Hannah looked up in alarm. “What?”
Parker rose. “Han, we’ll do what Frank says.”
“Go on. Now.”
Parker and her daughter stepped into the dim room, dominated by an eerie elk head.
“Mom?”
“Shh.”
She caught glimpses of Frank walking from the kitchen to a gun case. Opening a drawer.
Then she too heard the noise that would have alerted him, a snap.
She walked to a window and gasped.