Stay At Home Dead (2 page)
Authors: Jeffrey Allen
2
“Knee still bother you?” Sheriff Cedric Cobb asked.
“Not very much,” I said.
We were standing at the edge of the parking lot, watching the police technicians meander around my Honda, staring at it like it was a science project gone wrong. Carly was sitting on the edge of the curb next to me, her chin in her hands, waiting for us to be told we could go home. And Darlene was off to the side, in a crowd, reporting what she’d seen in my minivan with a hand cupped to the side of her mouth in a failed attempt at secrecy.
Cedric, though his title as sheriff was more ceremonial than anything now that Rose Petal had incorporated and had its own police force, was one of the first people to arrive. Forced into desk duty, he sought out every opportunity to get out of the office and act like a cop again. He’d been one of my father’s best friends for years, and I’d known him since I was a kid.
Cedric rubbed his square jaw and cut loose a low whistle. “I remember that hit Benny laid on you. Sounded like someone snapping a pencil in half when his helmet hit your knee.”
One of the problems with living in a small town, particularly a small town that reveres its sports, is that no one forgets a player or a play they did or did not make. Cedric himself was Rose Petal’s unofficial high school sports historian. Benny Barnes and I had been tied by that small-minded legacy since that night during my senior year of high school when he ended my football playing days.
Cedric shook his head. “Woulda been nice to see you play at A&M.”
Woulda been nice not to have had to pay for my college education, I thought. “Yep.”
He shifted his weight, which at just under three hundred pounds was considerable, and squinted at me. “Bet that pissed you off, his turnin’ your knee into spaghetti and all.”
He was about as subtle as a stun gun. “Cedric, I haven’t seen Benny in months, and I haven’t said a word to him in years.”
Cedric nodded slowly at that. “Sure. Just sayin’, Deuce.”
“Daddy, what are they doin’ to my car?” Carly asked below me.
“They just have to check some things,” I said, uncertain of what they were doing. “And they have to get the man out, too.”
“Are they gonna wake him up?”
Cedric chuckled softly next to me.
“I’m not sure, honey.”
Cedric squinted again in my direction. “How’s it goin’, not havin’ a job and all?”
“I have a job, Cedric. I take care of my daughter.”
He held up his huge hands like I was going to attack him. “Hey, don’t take it the wrong way, Deuce. I’d love it if Emmy’d get her big old rear end off the sofa and get her own job so I could stay at home and do ... whatever ... all day.”
The notion of a stay-at-home father was still a new idea in Rose Petal, Texas. When Carly was born, Julianne and I made a decision. She had a career that she loved and that paid her more than enough for us to live on. What I was making as a high school teacher and football coach was pocket change and would’ve flown out the door straight to day care. So I quit.
And most of the residents in Rose Petal still thought I’d been fired and that I had been sending out résumés with no luck for three years.
Truth was, I’d been a little nervous about it at first. I liked teaching and coaching, and I wasn’t sure how I would do at home, all alone with a tiny little being that would depend on me completely. But I’d taken to it about a minute after we brought Carly home from the hospital, and I relished the reverse gender roles we’d created in our home.
Didn’t mean I liked to take any crap about it, though.
“I have a job, Cedric,” I said again, the familiar bristle of irritation tickling my stomach. “I take care of my daughter.”
Cedric chuckled, nodding, his fat cheeks jiggling. “Sure, sure, Deuce. I got it.” He paused. “Hey, I got up at five thirty this morning to get to work. What time you get outta bed? To go to
work?
”
work?
”
“We get up at eight o’clock,” Carly announced. “Every day.”
We’d been talking about time recently. Apparently, she’d started to figure it out.
Cedric made a face, nodding like that seemed about right. “Eight o’clock. Boy, oh boy.”
“Shut up, Cedric,” I muttered.
“Uh-oh.” He aimed his chin at a younger guy in a suit and dark glasses, inspecting the rear of the van. “You’re gonna have fun with that boy.”
“Who’s he?”
“Willie Bell,” Cedric said. “Detective Willie Bell. Serious as a hurricane, but dumber than a puddle of spit. That is unlucky that he pulled this one. Unlucky for you.”
Detective Willie Bell stood a few feet behind my van. He removed his sunglasses, sweeping them off his face dramatically, then sticking the arm of the glasses into his mouth. He was speaking with one of the technicians, who pointed in our direction. Bell followed his direction and headed our way.
“Oh boy,” Cedric said, grinning. “This’ll be entertaining.”
Bell stopped in front of us. A couple inches shorter than me at six feet, slim, a brush-top crew cut. His skin was pink, like he’d just finished shaving. Short, stubby nose and wide eyes shaped like eggs. His getup was right out of a cop show from the seventies. An orange polyester short-sleeve dress shirt paired with hideous gray polyester pants that were an inch too short at his feet, exposing white socks under black lace-ups.
He looked me up and down, the glasses still in his mouth. Then he swept the glasses up and slid them onto his face.
Which I thought was sorta funny because the sun was behind him.
“You the owner of the vehicle?” he asked, his voice carrying the fake tone of a radio adman, deeper than his real voice, like he was about to offer me the deal of a lifetime on a used car.
“Yes,” I said.
“Gonna need to ask you some questions,” he said. “Tough ones.”
“I’ll try hard.”
Bell raised a thick, furry eyebrow above the glasses. “Don’t get smart with me, sir. This is a criminal investigation and a very serious matter.”
“Sure. Sorry.”
“Deuce is all right, Willie,” Cedric said. “Just be cool.”
Bell ignored him. “Tell me what happened.”
I explained coming out of the store and finding Benny in the car.
“What were you doing shopping in the middle of the day?” Bell asked.
“We grocery shop every Tuesday morning.”
“Ah. So you’re unemployed?”
Cedric cleared his throat.
“I take care of my daughter,” I said. “I stay home with her.”
“Can’t find a job?” Bell persisted. “Maybe you’re a little angry about that?”
What I was angry about was having my morning filled with bozos.
“I’m not looking for a job,” I said. I pointed down at Carly. “Taking care of my daughter is my job.”
She smiled up at Willie Bell. “We get up at eight o’clock.”
Bell didn’t acknowledge her, which is exactly when I cemented my opinion of him. Tough to like a guy who doesn’t acknowledge a cute three-year-old.
“Hmm. Don’t know about that,” Bell said.
“Know about what?”
“Your denial of anger, sir. I hear you and the victim had some history,” Bell said, folding his arms across his chest and tilting his chin up. “Care to fill me in?”
I held out my hand to Carly. She reached up, grabbed it, and pulled herself up. I smiled at her.
Then I looked at Willie Bell. “Actually, no. Sounds like you already know what you need to know. So I think I’m done.” I looked at Cedric, who shrugged and waddled away.
Bell put his hands on his hips. “I’ll tell you when you’re done, mister.”
“No,” I said as Carly and I walked away from him to the other end of the parking lot. “You can tell my lawyer when we’re done.”
3
“So I’m gonna need a lawyer,” I said.
“Good thing you married one, then,” my wife, Julianne, said.
We were sitting at the kitchen table, about to dig into a pizza that had just arrived. Carly was in her booster seat, sipping from a bendy straw and stacking the half dozen thin strips of pizza I’d cut for her into a tower. Julianne had been home for fifteen minutes. Time enough for her to change into sweats and a T-shirt, to decompress from her job as a partner in a high-end Dallas law firm, and for me to explain our day, right up to the abrupt end of my conversation with Detective Bell.
“Guy was a total j-e-r-k,” I said, slapping two pieces of pizza onto my plate.
Carly eyed me suspiciously. She’d picked up on the fact that when we spelled words in her presence, there was a reason for it.
“Did you just spell a bad word?” she asked.
“No.”
“Then what was it you were spelling?”
I looked to Julianne. I blamed her for birthing an intelligent child.
“Your daddy just likes to spell, honey,” she said, sliding into the chair across from me. “Makes him feel smart.”
Carly nodded, as if, yes, she recognized my need to feel smart, then went back to building her leaning tower of pizza.
“And they impounded the van?” Julianne asked.
“Yes,” I said. “I got Cedric to take us over to get the rental. Then I had to go and buy another car seat to get us home.”
“When was the last time you saw Benny?” Julianne asked, picking up the glass of Shiner Light I’d poured for her. I say glass because if I ever even suggested that Julianne Winters might drink beer from a bottle, I would probably never be given the opportunity to sleep with her again. She’s kinda weird that way.
“Don’t even know.”
“Guess.”
I thought about it. I could remember plenty of times in high school seeing his ugly mug staring at me from the other side of the line. And I certainly recalled the night he turned my knee into Silly Putty. In a small town like Rose Petal, I saw him once in a while, but it was always in passing and we didn’t speak. It was uncomfortable, and both of us hurried to be the first one to look away.
“Maybe about a month ago,” I said. “Saw him coming out of Delilah’s as I was driving by. But I haven’t spoken to him since high school I’d bet.”
“And remind me. Who’d he end up marrying again?” Julianne asked with an amused smile.
“You know who he married, Jules.”
“No, my memory is failing me, Deuce.” She sipped from the beer, her eyes wide. “Who?”
“Yeah, Daddy,” Carly chimed in. “Who?”
“He married Shayna,” I said, then bit off a chunk of pizza.
“Ah yes,” Julianne said, as if it was coming back to her. “Shayna Linihan. Your first love.”
“Stop.”
“Shayna,” Carly said, then looked at me. “Who’s Shayna?”
I glanced at Julianne, shaking my head. My wife was beautiful, smart, and funny. Sandra Bullock with an attitude. Not much to complain about, really. But she did love to see me squirm, and she could poke the needle with the best of them.
“Shayna was someone I used to know,” I said. I pointed to the tower of pizza. “Could you have at least a few bites?”
“Sure,” Carly said. She grabbed the top piece, crumpled it in her mouth, and smiled. “Shayna was your friend. Right, Daddy?”
Julianne chuckled and raised her glass in my direction before taking a drink.
Shayna Linihan and I dated our junior and senior years of high school. Everyone thought we would get married. Hell, I thought we’d get married. But after I’d busted up my knee and my dreams of being a football star at Texas A&M went up in smoke, Shayna went up in smoke, too. Somewhere along the line she’d ended up with Benny. Though Julianne and I ended up together, I’d had the misfortune of not having any idea who she was in high school, a fact she still enjoyed bringing up.
All things considered, looking at the two women I now shared my life with, I’d gotten the better end of the deal and then some.
“Yes, kiddo, she was my friend,” I said. “But I haven’t seen her in a long time.”
Carly nodded like she already knew that and returned her attention to her pizza.
“Don’t worry,” Julianne said, eyeing me over her glass. “It’s a bunch of noise over nothing. You didn’t kill him, and when they do the processing, they’ll figure that out. It’ll all go away.”
I grunted. Julianne wasn’t a criminal attorney. She handled complex civil stuff, and I trusted her opinion. But not much ever went away in Rose Petal.
Carly pointed toward our front window. “Someone’s here!”
Visitors excited her like nothing else. Be it the mailman or the UPS guy or someone selling something, she treated each and every arrival at our front door like Santa Claus.
And she was right. A giant black Lexus was parked at the curb in front of the house and a man was exiting the vehicle.
Tan skin, frosted blond hair that was combed back and hung down to his shoulders, a matching goatee around his chin and mouth. His slate gray suit clashed with his alligator boots and bright pink tie.
“Hit me over the head,” I said.
Julianne picked up her empty beer bottle, clutched it by the neck, ready to take a swing. “Wait. Why?”
“So I don’t have to talk to Billy Caldwell.”
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