“Well, one of the volunteer clubs there helped out Meals on Wheels for a few weeks. Some kind of senior project or something. And one of the guys getting delivered to is this Henry Lewis guy. Kid says he’s short, a little fat, definitely old. Never tips or makes cookies for the kids or anything. It’s just him, alone. So I got the kid to give me the address. They’re not supposed to, but I made up some bullshit story about reconciling the group’s gas expenditures and their status as a school group. Easy.”
Josh took a folded piece of paper out of his pocket and slid it across the table to me. Henry Lewis, 9911 N. Central, in some kid’s messy blue-inked scrawl. It had been two months since we’d found the photograph and the note.
I got up from my chair and circled around the table to hug Josh. “Thank you,” I whispered into his ear. A strand of his hair got into my mouth, laying the taste of shampoo onto my tongue.
Henry Lewis lived alone, in a white bungalow less than a mile away. From the outside the houses looked similar; a lot of houses in St. Johns had been built off the same or only slightly modified plans. It had been the kind of neighborhood where people just wanted to own a house of their own, whether or not five others on their block were identical.
I felt like I was ten again, knocking on his door. I’d sold Girl Scout cookies back then, back when we still went door-to-door, our moms in the cars behind us. I knocked once and got no answer, so I knocked again, harder this time. “Mr. Lewis?” I called out. I was wearing gray slacks and a light sweater, pale pink, with short sleeves. Nice, nonthreatening, neutral.
Shuffling noises inside. The door opened with a creak, and he stood in the doorway. So this was Henry Lewis. He looked his age; his skin was lined and saggy, the wrinkles especially deep around his mouth. Most of his hair was gone, except for fringes of gray around the bottom of his head. He wore jeans and a faded red T-shirt and bright white sneakers, the kind that people who think walking in the mall is exercise wear.
I waited for him to say something. Nothing came.
“Mr. Lewis,” I started. “My name is Allison Priest, and my husband and I just moved into 9535 North Leonard.”
Nothing.
“Your old house?” I hated myself for making that a question, but it skipped out before I could stop it. “It was yours, right?”
He nodded.
“Well, I’m hoping I can ask you a few questions about Julia.” I pulled the photo out of my purse. “We found this in the walls. It’s Julia, isn’t it?”
No nod this time, he just motioned me in. The living room was in shade. Not dark, exactly, but with a certain yellow light, a bit dim. Henry Lewis sat down in a brown easy chair; the velour on the arms was faded. The way he sat, his gut protruded forward. I saw a cane in the corner, though he hadn’t carried it to the door. I stood for a moment, trying to adjust to the light. I sat down on a blue sofa, across from him. The cushions were firmer than I’d expected.
“I’m here about Julia,” I said.
“Julia’s dead,” he replied. He made a noise, half clicking and half sucking, with his cheek.
“I know,” I said. “And I know you were involved.”
He snorted. “Involved all right.”
“What does that mean? What happened?”
He glared at me. “You a reporter? Cop? Lawyer?”
I had been leaning toward him, but now sat back in surprise. “No, of course not. I fix bikes.”
He shook his head, a slight sneer on his lips. “Women shouldn’t do that sort of thing. Can’t fix anything worth a damn.”
I felt the old defensiveness rise in my throat. Steady, he’s old. Steady. “How were you involved in her death?”
Was he falling asleep? His eyes were closed, and his head seemed to nod forward.
I raised my voice: “How did she die? What happened?”
His head was still down, and now he seemed to be wheezing. Unreal. I wanted to poke him with something, but the room was bare. “Hey, you!” I spoke as loudly as I could, to try to wake him. “What do you mean, involved? What does involved mean?” I was shouting by the end of the sentence, I knew. I could feel my muscles tighten up all over.
His head snapped up. “I killed her, you fool. You stupid woman, I killed her.”
When I tried to speak, my throat was so dry the words got stuck. I tried again. “You did kill her? You did it?”
He nodded. “Yep.”
“But-the note? And the photo, under the wallpaper?” I heard the wail in my own voice. “I found them. The truth, you said. You both knew the truth.”
Henry Lewis chuckled, a wheezy sound, reedy and almost boyish. “That was just my little joke,” he said. “Julia and I were the only ones who knew. Everyone else thought they knew-but they never knew why, or how. And they never knew what I knew: she deserved it. She knew it too, knew I was gonna do it and knew she deserved it.”
He shifted, settled back into his chair.
“I’d been seeing this little yellow-haired gal on the side.
Sally or Sara or something. Anyway, she’d been good to me, real good. Better’n Julia ever was. Me and Julia were high school sweethearts, got married, I went to work. Dumb kids. We didn’t know nothing. After we got married, well, Julia just about froze up. In bed she was nothing, just laid there, and she kept a terrible house. She hated it here, y’see. She hated the rain in the winter, hated the dampness. I told her we’d leave, but after we got married I started working for the railroad, and the money was too good to give up. I told her we were staying put. She didn’t like that, and she just froze up on me then. When she wasn’t froze, she was crying. When she wasn’t crying, she was screaming. Man has a right to his house, to some peace and quiet. And Sally moved in a few doors down, and she was three years younger than Julia, still in high school. Pretty, sweet. Sally liked a man with some spending money. Julia found out. I told her I had a right to a girl who wanted me. She said she’d divorce me, take all my money, get me fired. All this crap.”
He paused. I couldn’t say anything. There was no sound from outside, either.
A cough, and he began again. “One day I came home from work and killed her. Hit her on the head with a frying pan.” That wheezy dry chuckle. “She went down in a heap. I remember the blood came from her head here”-he pointed to a spot above his left ear-“like it was a drinking fountain. I wiped off my fingerprints and dropped the frying pan and ran outta there to pick up Sally for a movie. When I came home, I called the police and said I’d just found her like that, and that I hadn’t been home at all that day cause I’d been out with my girlfriend. Sally backed me up-pretty girl, but dumb as dumb-and they could never prove a thing.”
“So the truth was that…?”
“The truth was that I killed her. She knew I was gonna do it, right up until I did it. And then she was dead and by God she really knew it. She wouldn’t ever cross me no more.” The chuckle again, and now its thinness sounded like wires rubbing against each other, scraping and raw. “Some people thought it was me, sure enough, but couldn’t no one ever prove it. And no one ever knew how much that bitch needed killing.”
I could feel the tears begin in me, the pressure building in my eyes and my sinuses. I swallowed, and my spit seemed to grate along my throat.
“What’s so funny about that?” I asked. “How is that a joke?”
He just wheezed and shook his head some more. I felt the hair on my arms stand up, but I forced my face into impassivity.
“None of my other girlfriends or wives ever tried any of that shit with me again,” he said at last. “Expect they heard about Julia and knew they’d have to shape up. Buried two wives, had girlfriends the whole time. They knew how to keep quiet.”