“I can’t imagine anyone who could know more than I do,” she said, projecting her voice so it could be heard through the door’s acrylic covering. The voice was unexpected, dry as beef jerky. It sounded Western to Tess, not in its accent so much as in its smoky, sun-baked timbre, which was suggestive of mesas and cactus and turquoise jewelry. “But I don’t much care for someone asking questions about me.”
“About you?”
“Well, I’m Julie Carter. Seems to me you should know that, if you’re going around and looking into me, asking questions about me. What are you?”
Not who, but what, Tess noted. That choice told her quite a bit about Julie Carter’s life, the kind of person who was apt to show up on her doorstep.
“It was my information… my understanding-” There did not seem to be any polite or effective way to tell someone she was included on a list of homicide victims. “I’m a private investigator, looking into some old cases. I was told you were… dead. Clearly, there’s been a mistake.”
“Oh, I don’t know. Some days I feel like I’m dead.” She folded her arms and leaned against the doorjamb. The house sat off by itself, as if it might have been a farm before this part of the county was developed. “You come up from Baltimore?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s farther than you think, isn’t it? From Baltimore, I mean.”
“A bit, yes.” Tess was confused. She had gotten the bum’s rush in considerably less awkward situations. But Julie Carter appeared to be prolonging their encounter, enjoying it.
“Yeah, I thought it was a real find, this place. Cheap, and it doesn’t look that far from I-83. And it isn’t, as the crow flies, but I’m not a crow. It takes at least an hour if you want to get to Baltimore, have a little fun.” She smiled broadly. “Which I do. Look, you wanna come in, have a cup of coffee?”
Why not. “Why not?”
“Cool.” She clapped her hands, the way a little girl might show delight, and unlatched the door. “Except it has to be tea. I just remembered I don’t have any coffee. That’s another thing about living out here in the sticks. It’s not like you can run out and grab something at the corner store. There is no corner store. There is no corner. ”Course, I guess someone who works at a grocery store ought to always have groceries, right? But when my shift finally ends, all I want to do is get out. So I never have any food in the house. Is that ironic or what?“
Literal-minded Tess was tempted to say no, this was not irony, merely absentmindedness. But she sensed something needy beneath Julie Carter’s cheerful banter. She must be lonely, a young single woman plopped down in the middle of these middle-class families. “Tea is always nice.”
“So, someone thinks I’m dead,” Julie said, putting a kettle on to boil and bringing out a basket of teabags, no two alike. “I get ‘em at restaurants. You oughta see my mustard collection. And ketchup. I’ve got a lot of ketchup. How did I die?”
“You didn’t, obviously.”
“I know. It’s probably some other Julie Carter. I get that all the time.”
“Probably. But I did have this address. In fact, your name and address were all I had.”
“So, was I murdered?”
Tess was so taken with Julie’s foghorn voice that she wasn’t really listening to the words, just the tobacco-cured vowel sounds. Julie was a heavy smoker. Being inside the house was like crawling into a pack of Marlboros.
“Well?”
“Well, what?”
“Was I murdered?”
“Your name was on a list of open homicides. Murder is a legal term.” She sounded priggish, but her tone didn’t seem to bother Julie Carter.
“Gunshot? Knife? Poison?” The teakettle sang, a muted whistle, and her hostess shook a basket of sweeteners at Tess, hundreds of white and blue and pink packets.
“I don’t have that information. There’s no information to have. You’re alive.”
“I once thought about being a private investigator. But I think I’m going to open my own flower shop instead.” She laughed as if this were uproarious. “Who am I kidding? If I don’t get my ass in gear, I’m never gonna accomplish anything.”
“I don’t know,” Tess said, assuming she was expected to object. “You have a nice house here.” It was neat and well-kept, even if the white walls had yellowed from cigarette smoke.
“A rental. I wouldn’t be here at all if it weren’t for this guy I once dated. He convinced me to move out here, then dumped my ass. The stories I could tell you. I sure can pick ‘em.”
It occurred to Tess that the error that had sent her to Julie Carter’s door might at least be rooted in fact.
“Bad boyfriends?”
“Nothing but.”
“Have you ever been… stalked?” Somehow, this seemed more acceptable than asking a stranger if she had been hit or assaulted. “Had to take out a restraining order?”
“Most of the men I get involved with can’t be restrained. That’s the problem. It’s gotten to the point where, when I start dating a guy, I feel like saying, ”Look, why don’t you just sleep with one of my friends now and get it over with?“ Honest. I figure if he did it in the beginning, he’d get it out of his system and I wouldn’t feel cheated on.”
“Oh.” That kind of restraint.
“They’re different, aren’t they?”
“Who?”
“Men. What else are we talking about? Although, I gotta say, when I find a good one, I get bored. The good ones can be so boring. Like the guy who wanted me to move up here. He paid the rent and all, so I thought, Why not? But he was so dull, never wanted to do anything, and got mad when my friends came by. He said I had to choose, them or him. Then he left, so I didn’t have to choose after all. What are you going to do? Go with boring and faithful, or exciting and jerky?” She fixed her eyes on Tess, as if she were some oracle.
“I think that changes, depending on where you are in your life.”
“No, I mean what do you do? You look like fun, you’ve got a hot job. You married? Or are you still running free?”
“I-why, neither. My boyfriend’s great.” Crow was great. Saying it out loud reminded her just how great he was, how lucky she was. “He’s warm and funny and spontaneous, loyal as a dog.”
“No such thing,” Julie said. Her incongruously deep voice gave her words an unearned authority.
“How old are you anyway?”
“Twenty-two.”
“You’re awfully young. You can’t have had that many boyfriends.”
“I’ve had enough. All ages, too, all the way up to thirty.”
“Thirty. Wow.”
Julie didn’t catch the sarcasm. “And that was when I was seventeen. But I don’t like old men. They’re boring. How old is your boyfriend?”
Tess did the math. “Twenty-five.”
“Oh, a younger man.” Julie Carter’s certitude on this fact stung a little. Tess liked to think she could pass for twenty-five, at least. “Well, maybe that’s the way to go. After thirty, I mean. But I like a guy who has spending money. Is that too much to ask? A nice guy, good sex, a little money so we can go out on the weekends, not count pennies. Last guy I went out with got mad when I ordered a third rum and Coke. You know what he said? He said, ”You’re already drunk enough to screw me.“ I said, ”You know what, honey? I’ll never be that drunk.“ Walked out of that bar and hitchhiked home. But that’s another story.”
“Yes,” Tess agreed, feeling a little dazed by all these words, all this information.
“A lot has happened to me. I mean-a lot. But I’m alive and never been anything but. In fact, I’ve never had stitches, even though I almost cut my toe off once.” She propped her bare foot on the table and grabbed her second toe, as if beginning a game of Little Piggy. The second toe was considerably longer than the big one. The foot was absurdly small, even for someone as tiny as Julie Carter, plump and white as a baby’s.
“See that?”