“True.” Mrs. Murphy stretched. “And Tazio needed Carlo. It was an important commission. She couldn’t afford to get a reputation that might turn other people away”
“They’d only have to know Carla to know the truth of that.” Brinkley’s neck fur ruffled in indignation.
“People have to live here for a while to know those things. New people listen. Actually, even people who aren’t new listen. A gossip campaign does damage,” Mrs. Murphy sagely noted. “Humans are prone to it.”
“Remember the Republican primary in South Carolina in 2000?” Tucker followed these things with Harry as they both watched the TV or read the paper. “They saw that Karl Rove started a whispering campaign about John McCain having an affair with a woman of color. You’d think no one would believe it. Did. Carlo’s gossip could have hurt Tazio if Tazio had really set her off.”
“Mother didn’t kill her, no matter what.” Brinkley was adamant.
“Who’s growling?” Harry turned from the fence.
Paul did, as well. “Brinkley, be nice.”
“I am.” Brinkley lay down, putting his head on his paws.
“He’s so sad, poor fellow,” Paul remarked. “I’m not much help. I feel… I can’t even describe how I feel.”
Mrs. Murphy rubbed against Brinkley. “Anything else, anything at all?”
“No. Mother said that Carla was an emotionally unrestrained person. She considered it irresponsible. After Dr. Wylde was shot, Carla called to cancel her meeting with Mom and Mike, and when Mom put down the phone she said Carla was behaving like an idiot, that you would have thought Dr. Wylde was her lover, the way she was sobbing.”
Mrs. Murphy stopped mid-rub. She said nothing, but a tiny piece of this wretched puzzle had fallen into place.
25
There’s an old carny trick, successful over the centuries in rural America. A barker called people to the sideshows. He extolled the beauty and weirdness of the bearded lady, the enormous bulk of the fat man, the frightening aspect of the reptile boy, each in their separate tents. Other human oddities filled a row of tents.
When the crowds became large enough, before the tickets were sold, the barker would helpfully tell the crowd—mostly men, since genteel ladies would be too repelled to attend—to protect their money from pickpockets.
Human nature: the men would reach for their wallet to make sure it was still there. They’d pat a breast pocket if wearing a seersucker coat or their hip pocket if in jeans or overalls. Since the pickpockets worked with the barker, giving him a contested percent—he knew they underreported their take—they were in the crowd. Pickpockets noted who patted what, and the rest was easy as pie.
Mike patted his pocket, so to speak, after checking over Little Mim and Blair’s plans. He had been uncharacteristically mild, mindful that she was the vice mayor of Crozet.
He drove back to Woolen Mills, where he and Noddy owned a well-kept wooden house. Noddy, being queen of that house, suffered few changes to her way of doing things. Mike had his shed for the lawn mower, gun repair, and tools, and a separate office near the tool room. He could live in there, since he’d tricked it out, put in R-19 insulation, added windows. His small desk held a new computer. A small propane fireplace rested along one wall, and in winter it heated the twelve-by-fourteen-foot office area more than enough. He’d also insulated the floor. First, he’d put down a vapor barrier, then the wooden support slats—two-by-fours, running parallel—and stuffed that with insulation. Next he’d put down a good hardwood floor, having been given some nice oak overflow from a construction site. Under his desk he had a trapdoor concealed by a hard rubber floor covering, so he could roll around on his desk chair without marking up the beautiful stained and waxed oak.
He told Noddy he couldn’t stand sitting at a desk in the house when she roared through with the vacuum cleaner, ordering him to lift his feet.
He opened his office door and looked out the windows to see if anyone was around, which they weren’t. He pulled the shades just in case. Noddy wouldn’t come home from work for another hour, given the traffic. Still, one couldn’t be too careful.
He walked into the tool part of the shed, came back with an old towel, put it on the floor, and rolled the chair onto the towel. Mike was as fussy as Noddy. Then he pulled the mat away. Down on his hands and knees, he slipped his forefinger through the recessed brass half ring, which was painted black, and lifted the trapdoor. He stepped down into the small area, not four feet by six feet, which was low but he could stand. Shelves lined the four walls, but only one side of the shelves was filled. He pulled out a key, squatted down, and opened a metal strongbox on the bottom shelf. He counted the cash: sixty-two thousand dollars collected over the years. He examined the jewelry, much of it very valuable. Someday way off in the future he would take the jewelry up to New York and fence it, if he could bear to part with it. Mike appreciated beauty. He shut the small heavy metal door, listening for the sweet click of the automatic lock.
His knees creaked when he stood up. Colored wooden boxes lined the next shelf. He opened one box to gaze at the lace panties within, each one snatched from a conquest—most not terribly willing—over his years as inspector. Smiling broadly, he picked up an emerald-green pair and slipped his hand through a leg opening to gaze at the fine handiwork on the lace. Made by hand, the lace testified that these select undies belonged to a woman of taste and money. Penny Lattimore, in fact. He folded the panties, putting them back in the box.
He loved his victories. He loved the power over women. Hurting a woman wasn’t his goal. Mike wasn’t a mean man, simply a weak and screwed-up man. He liked making them pay. From some he just took jewelry and money. Others, sex. Still others, both. You never knew in this world, and cash was hard to procure. As for the jewelry, he thought of the ears, necks, wrists, and fingers on which they had sparkled. The panties—now, there lay a prize. Oh, he had to wear them down to get those panties off, but he’d learned over the years that most women had secrets, secrets they wanted kept from their husbands, even a child out of wedlock. He’d learned to read the signs: not much communication with their husbands, obsession with their looks. Being unfulfilled, their energies were directed elsewhere, and sometimes he could catch their nervousness when the subject of sex out of wedlock came up. He made sure it filtered into early conversations with a woman; usually he disguised it as a joke. Finding something wrong in the building code occurred after patient research of the lady of the house.
Noddy bragged to friends how hard Mike worked, how dedicated he was to his job. Little did she know.
26
Claustrophobia gripped Benita Wylde. Not the suffocating kind, where a person becomes terrified in an elevator, but the soft claustrophobia of staying in the house. She needed to get out and do something.
She’d been to the office only once since Will was shot, and that seemed like it had been years ago during the day, seconds ago during the night. Time confused her. Somehow it seemed absurd, marking time. Everything seemed absurd and empty without Will, but she forced herself to not lose those threads that bind a life. Bills will come in and must be paid. Keep on keeping on.
Margaret Westlake sat at the front desk area, which had a sliding-glass window. She looked up from a schedule book, where she had written the names of doctors filling in for Will until a permanent solution could be found.
Surprised to see his widow, she jumped out of her chair and gave Benita a big hug.
“I came by to see how you girls are doing; you’ve all been so good to come by the house every day.”
Hearing Benita’s voice, Sophie Denham came out of an examining room, and Kylie Kraft came up the hallway, folders in hand.