“Well, I’ve… said it all, really. He just comes home drunk and gets mean. He’s never hurt Cindy-that’s our daughter-but he doesn’t have much hesitation about… about beating on me.”
And she started to cry.
More Kleenex.
My stomach was fluttering. Debbie had never been the emotional type when I’d dated her. I’d gotten to think of her as rather cold-hearted and manipulative, toward the end of our going-steady era, and seeing her break down, like a real human being, was disturbing.
“And that’s why you came here?” I said after a while. “You wanted to talk to somebody about Pat, and this problem of his?”
“No,” she said, stiffening her upper lip, taking a few final dabs with the latest Kleenex. She sipped her beer, smiled, and said, “No, that’s why we separated. And divorce is only a few tiny steps away. I can see no hope for reconciliation, especially now…. I wanted to try, for Cindy’s sake, but….”
“What do you mean, ‘especially now’?”
“That’s why I’m here, Mal. I got a phone call from Pat. Just before I called you. He was drunk… roaring. He said he was going to beat the hell out of me. And you.”
“Me?”
“Yes. He had some crazy story about you trying to frame him for that murder. The one mentioned on the radio this morning-the old woman?”
The evening paper wasn’t out yet, so she (and the rest of the town) wouldn’t know the details as yet.
I nodded.
“You did find the old woman, didn’t you? I heard that much on the radio. You did find the body and contact the police?”
“Well, it was the sheriff’s department I contacted, but yeah, I did all that.”
“Pat says you told… I thought he said police, but maybe he just said ‘cops,’ which could just as easy be the sheriff’s people, right?”
“Right.”
“Anyway, Pat says you told the cops or whoever that you saw his car there. He says you’re trying to get this murder pinned on him. He thinks….” She smiled again, but at the same time her eyes teared up. “… he thinks you and I are seeing each other, having an affair, and have cooked up this scheme to get at him.”
“Oh Christ!”
“It sounds crazy, I know. I can’t believe Pat will still believe that when he’s sober, but right now I don’t think being reasonable is high on his list.”
“No, I don’t suppose so. And he says he’s going to beat hell out of both of us?”
She nodded.
“Maybe we should call the police,” I suggested.
“No!” she said. “I couldn’t stand the embarrassment. He is… Cindy’s father, after all.”
“Okay. I can understand your point of view. But where do we go from here?”
“Is it true? Did you report his car as being at the old woman’s place?”
“It’s true,” I said. “And it was there. But Pat is clear; he reported the car stolen, prior to the murder. So I don’t see where he’s in much danger of getting framed.”
“He said something about that, too. Mumbled something about maybe you did that; maybe you stole his car to get him involved; maybe you killed that old woman hoping to pin it on him. Ridiculous, I know, but tell that to a man crazy-drunk.”
Not so ridiculous. I was everybody’s favorite suspect. Except Brennan’s, oddly enough.
“What do you want me to do, Debbie? Do you want to stay here for a while?”
“No. I don’t want to alarm Cindy-she’s with Mother now. Pat’s never bothered Cindy, or Mother, so I think the two of them’ll be all right.” She shivered.
“Where are you living?”
“We have an apartment downtown. Could you… would you stay with us tonight? I can tell Cindy you’re a friend of the family or an uncle or something.”
This was the dream of a lifetime, but I had hoped to start poking into things tonight, contacting a few people who I thought could help me uncover some things regarding Mrs. Jonsen’s murder. But maybe this was worth the time at that. Maybe Pat Nelson was involved in the murder and was being either cute or stupid.
“Okay,” I said. “Be glad to.”
She leaned over, touched a hand to my face. “Mal.”
“Yeah?”
“Can I do something I wanted to do for a long time?”
I shrugged. “Sure.”
“Good,” she said, and smiled her tiny smile.
And kissed me.
14
As old, remodeled apartments go, Debbie’s wasn’t so bad. It was located on Second Street, in the block where the downtown makes its last gasp and the slope of West Hill takes over. About a third of the places of business on her block had new brick fronts and had witnessed considerable self-initiated urban renewal by forward-looking landlords; but she had her run-down neighbors, too: several bars, a pair of sagging, empty warehouses, and the old union hall.
Below Debbie was a nice bar/restaurant owned by one of the conscientious landlords, who had seen to it that the apartment was freshly wallpapered and supplied with new kitchen appliances. The rest of her apartment, though, was clearly much as it had been, say, fifty years ago. The ceilings were high and of gray, faded plaster edged with plaster rococo-not unlike the wood carving at Mrs. Fox’s, only the work of a far less talented craftsman. The floors were bare dark wood, the varnish mostly worn away. It had apparently come furnished, because a secondhand-store decor was mixed oddly with things Debbie and her husband had bought, like the twenty-five-inch TV and the stereo console in the living room.
After climbing up the narrow and gloomy stairwell, we entered into the daughter’s room, with its pink wallpaper and fuzzy pink throw rugs, scattered like discarded old sweaters of Debbie’s. A door straight ahead led to the bleak, brown master bedroom; a doorless archway to the right led to the kitchen, and through the kitchen was the living room, with its light blue wallpaper smattered with dark blue flowers, soft-focus lighting coming from standing lamps. A pleasant enough, very much lived-in apartment.
An apartment a man had lived in. In the living room was a gun rack with three balsa-wood models of Winchester rifles, as well as two crossed swords on a tin shield, and over the bed were two pseudo-authentic dueling pistols on plaques-phallic symbols all, left behind (consciously or not) to remind anyone who entered this apartment that a man had been with the woman who slept here.
“Can I ask you something?” I said.
Debbie had decided to leave her daughter at her mother’s for the night. We were sitting on a black imitation-leather couch in the living room, sipping glasses of Pepsi. Debbie didn’t keep beer in the house. It was cold in there, an air conditioner chugging away in the bottom of a big bay window across the room. I was half-turned, studying a large frame behind the couch, a frame exhibiting half a dozen license plates; the two plates closest to my line of vision were number two from one year ago and number one from two years ago.
“What do you want to ask?” she said.
“Something about your husband.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“Why in God’s name does he go lusting after these damn license plates? What in hell possesses him?”
“What makes anyone go after something?” she said. “What makes anyone try to be first at anything?”
“But something so absurd, so pointless….” I stopped myself short. I was going condescending on her.
“I suppose I agree,” she said, with her tiny smile, “but it’s one of the more harmless things a man like Pat might decide to pursue. But I must say I don’t enjoy camping out in the cold dead of winter on the courthouse lawn, teeth chattering all night, waiting to dash into the building next morning and fight and claw toward the license counter.” She laughed. “Have to admit, though, that year we got license plate number one was kind of a thrill.”
I shook my head, laughed, and said, “To each his own, I guess. You think Pat’ll come around tonight and bother us?”
“Hard to say. Could be he won’t show up at all. Could be he’ll show sooner than tonight… could be any time now. He’s already roaring drunk.”