The Popsicle Tree (6 page)

“That's okay,” Kelly responded. “I can still eat a cookie.”

“You can have a cookie for dessert,” she said, smiling at him, then turned her attention to Jonathan and me. “I think we'd better go. Thanks for showing me the pictures, Jonathan. You're a good photographer.”

She got up, then bent over to pick up Kelly's cars, one of which he refused to part with, and they went toward the door. Suddenly she stopped and turned around.

“I wasn't going to mention this,” she said, “and I probably shouldn't bother you with my paranoia, but…”

“What is it?”

“Well, today when I came to pick up Kelly at Happy Day, there was a car parked across the street, and the man in it was taking pictures out the car window. He was still there when I brought Kelly out, and I think he was still taking pictures, but when he saw me looking at him, he drove off.”

“That's odd, but given the nature of kids' family situations, I wouldn't be surprised if a non-gay parent checked up on things every now and again.”

“I suppose that's true, but…I'm pretty sure I've seen him before.”

“Oh? Where?”

“Here.”

CHAPTER 3

“Here?”

“In front of the building…a day or two ago. I'm sure it was the same man, but I may be wrong. He was just standing on the sidewalk looking at the building. He didn't have a camera and I just remember thinking, ‘I wonder what he's looking at.' I didn't pay any more attention to him and I think he just walked away, but when I saw the man in the car I could swear it was the same man.”

Maybe she
was
being paranoid. Maybe she wasn't. And it was the “maybe she wasn't” that bothered me.

“Why don't you give me a call after you get Kelly to sleep? I'd like to talk to you a little more about all this.”

Kelly was holding her outstretched hand and leaning at about a fifty-five degree angle away from her—I wasn't sure if he was trying to pull her to the door, or was just being a four-year-old boy curious as to how far he could lean without falling over.

“I will.” She took a few steps toward the door, which apparently caught Kelly by surprise and made him scramble to regain his balance.

When they'd gone, Jonathan returned to his seat next to me.

“How long before dinner?” I asked.

“How long will it take you to cook it?” he asked, then quickly hunched his shoulders and raised his hands in front of his face as if warding off an expected assault and added, “Just kidding! Just kidding! It's already in the oven.”

“You're a real card, Quinlan.”

He smiled broadly. “I'm glad you think so.”

“So have we got time to look at the photos first?”

“Sure!” he said happily, reaching for the stack.

*

At eight thirty, Carlene called, speaking softly. I thought about asking her to come back down, but knew she wouldn't want to leave Kelly alone, and I didn't want to suggest my going up there for fear of waking Kelly. Well, the phone would have to do.

“About this man you saw. What did he look like?”

“Well, I didn't really have all that good a look at him either time. It was really hard to tell positively if the man in the car was the same man or not.”

Well, that was helpful
, I thought.

“But they were both dark skinned—Italian, Greek, or maybe Mexican or Spanish—and they both had jet-black hair and a thick mustache; you know, the kind that makes a sort of horseshoe around the mouth? I'm quite sure it was the same man.”

It sure seemed so from her description, however muzzy it may have been. “And you don't remember ever having seen him before he showed up in front of the apartment?”

“No, I'm sure.”

“Well, it sounds pretty much like a private investigator to me. Would Jan be likely to hire a private investigator?”

I knew that was pretty
un
likely, since if it was her ex who'd left the note, she obviously knew where Carlene lived before the guy with the mustache appeared on the scene.

“No, Jan spends money as fast as she gets it. I can't see her hiring an investigator. And what reason would she have?”

Point,
I thought.

“Anyone else you can think of who might hire one? Your ex-husband, for example?”

“Oh, no, I was never married, and Roy would be the last person in the world to care where I was or what I was doing.”

“Well, there's Kelly.”

“Roy doesn't know about Kelly, and wouldn't care less if he did.”

“How did you meet Jan?”

“At work.”

“This was before or after you met Roy?”

“I was three months pregnant when I met Jan.”

“So they didn't know one another, I assume.”

She paused. “Yes, they did, oddly enough. I never did figure out how or why, but I do know that if there's one person in the world Jan loathes, it's Roy. I figured a lot of it was because of Roy getting me pregnant, but apparently it went back a long way before we met.

“Roy was a stockcar racer, and I was a starry-eyed teenager who didn't really know what I wanted. When I told him I was pregnant, he wanted me to have an abortion…he said he hated kids and wasn't about to have his life ruined by having one. So he gave me the phone number of some guy he heard of who performed abortions, gave me a hundred dollar bill, and said he'd call me in a week or so. I said I'd do it, but I couldn't. When he called the next week I told him I'd done it, but that I never wanted to see him again. And I didn't.”

“Sounds like a real nice guy.”

“You have no idea. I really wish I knew what he'd done to Jan to make her hate him so, but knowing Roy, I'm sure she had her reasons. Roy's dad was a really shady character who made a ton of money with a string of auto body repair shops, most of which were fronts for bookie joints. Roy bragged that his father had served a couple of years in prison for it. And his mother's a shrew who has every nickel Roy's dad left when he died—Roy didn't get a cent except for what she doled out to him when she felt like it. That's probably why Roy shows her nothing but contempt. I think he started dating me because he knew his mother wouldn't approve, and she most certainly did not.

“Jan really looked after me through my pregnancy, but I think she was afraid that Roy or his mother might find out about it, and when she suggested that we request a job transfer to the Cincinnati office, we did. I didn't tell anyone I knew except my sister, who had just moved to Carrington. She couldn't stand Roy, either, but I wouldn't listen to her.”

“Has your sister talked to Jan, do you know?”

“Jan called her a couple of times wanting to know where I was, but Beth wouldn't tell her. Beth and Jan never got along, either. Both of them were always trying to protect me in their own ways, but their ways were poles apart.”

“I appreciate you being so open, and about the only thing I can think of for now is that if you see the guy with the mustache again, and if he's in a car, try to get the plate number. I can track it down from there.”

“Thank you, Dick. No wonder Jonathan loves you.”

“That's very nice of you to say, and you're more than welcome. I'll talk to you tomorrow, or if you need to reach me at the office, feel free. I'm in the book under Hardesty Investigations. Have a good night's sleep.”

“I will. And thanks again.”

*

The next week was a total blur. There were really only two major highlights amidst dealing with a couple of minor cases and Jonathan spending just about every nonworking hour getting the apartment ready for his relatives. I received a comfortingly large check from the case I'd worked on while “on vacation” in New York—long story—and, thanks in no small part to that check, Jonathan and I found ourselves at Cramer Motors.

I'd figured that with Joshua needing transportation to and from day care—even though Carlene would probably be willing to take him in and pick him up with Kelly, it would be an imposition—and Jonathan having been building up his “car fund” so diligently, it was time we looked into getting him a car of his own. Not surprisingly, Jonathan agreed one hundred percent.

So on Wednesday I picked him up from work and we drove into The Central and Cramer Motors. We parked on the street and as we walked onto the lot, my crotch immediately called my attention to the fact that Clint was on duty, talking with two other guys I assumed to be customers. Ignoring it, we started walking around, looking at various prospects. By mutual agreement, we skipped the high-end cars and concentrated on the more reasonable and practical.

Jonathan had just climbed into a little Volkswagen when Clint appeared.

“Good afternoon, guys,” he said, his charm-and-sex-appeal engines running full bore. To my crotch's delight, he recognized me. “Hello, Dick!” he said warmly, extending his hand. “I'm glad you came back!” He bent forward slightly to look into the car at Jonathan who, when he looked up from running his hands over the dashboard and steering wheel, was obviously as impressed as I had been the first time I saw him.

“And you're Dick's other half, I assume.” Jonathan reached across himself to shake Clint's hand, returning his smile. When they released the handshake—which they seem to have held for a little longer than I was comfortable with—Jonathan slid out of the car and closed the door.

Sure, Hardesty,
one of my mind-voices said,
you could drag out a handshake with Clint for an hour and a half, but you get irked when Jonathan holds it half a second longer than you think he should? Can we say “double standard,” boys and girls?

It was right, of course.

After asking several questions to get an idea of what Jonathan wanted, subtly buttering him up like a fresh ear of boiled corn, Clint guided us to several other cars. I stayed largely out of it. This was Jonathan's decision after all, not mine.

When we reached the other end of the lot, Jonathan pointed to a neat little gunmetal grey Toyota Corolla sitting in front of the service garage. “What about that one?” he asked, starting toward it.

“That just came in this morning,” Clint said. “I don't think Mr. Cramer's even priced it yet. They just finished servicing it.”

“Can you go check?”

“Well, sure.” I think he was just a little disappointed that his regular sales charms had not done their job on their own.

“And will you tell him I'm here?” I asked. “I'd talked about a car with him.”

“Sure. I'll be right back.”

Jonathan and I continued over to the Toyota.

“Samuel had one exactly like this! Same year, same model, same color. I loved it!”

“Do you really want a four-door? We already have one.”

Jonathan started circling the car slowly, bending down to look under the wheel wells, kicking the tire, checking for dings and dents on the body.

“I like four-doors,” he said, continuing his inspection. As I followed him around, I noted that it did seem to be in excellent shape. When he'd circled back to the driver's door, he opened it and got in.

“It's a stick shift, just like Samuel's.” He glanced at the odometer. “And it's only got 36,000 miles on it! That's really great for a five-year-old car!”

At that point, Clint came up and said, “Mr. Cramer would like to see you in his office.”

“Me?” I asked. “Or both of us.”

“Both of you.”

And that is how we became a two-car family.

*

To continue with the blurred week, there was insurance to get for the car, license plates to apply for, and a lot of hassle trying to figure out where we were going to park it. Parking on the street was possible, but not easy, and of course Jonathan, solicitous for his new car's welfare, wanted to have a garage for it. He went so far as to go from door to door in our building asking if anyone might not be using his or her assigned garage. By the luck of the Irish—Quinlan being a fine old Irish name—an older couple on the ground floor had just sold their car and did not intend to get another.

So one by one the problems were resolved, the week passed, and it was Friday night. Phil and Tim joined us for dinner at our favorite restaurant, Napoleon, and we had our usual great evening. We had taken Jonathan's car, of course, so he could show it to Phil and Tim, who were duly impressed. After dinner he insisted that he drive us all out to Ramón's for a nightcap. It was a transparent ploy so he could show it to Bob Allen. But we pretended we didn't notice.

We didn't get home until late, and found a message on the machine from Carlene, asking me to call her. It didn't sound urgent, and it was really too late to try to call then, so I decided to call her first thing in the morning.

*

I called Carlene while Jonathan was fixing breakfast. She had seen the man in the car again, outside her office, and she'd managed to get a license plate number, which I took down—I'd check it out with Bil Dunham on Monday. While she was still upset, the man had not approached her, so she was more concerned about why he was following her and who was behind it.