“What’s up?” I asked.
“Lindy who heard it from Bobbie who heard it from Lisa who heard it from Ellie who got it straight from the horse’s mouth says you talked to Melanie this mornin’,” Jessie told me.
My mind flew through the strategies available to deal with this situation.
I settled on nonchalance. “Yeah, sure, she called this morning.”
“And?” Meems prompted.
“And nothing, Colt was gone. He had work,” I answered.
“And?” Jessie said this time.
“Nothin’,” I replied.
“Girlie, your whatever-he-is’s ex phones you, findin’ you at his house first thing in the mornin’, you call your girlfriends so we can peck it over and so, when other people call us about it, we don’t look like assholes because we’re surprised,” Jessie informed me.
“It wasn’t a big deal,” I informed her right back.
“It was, seein’ as she was callin’ Colt to ask him to dinner so she could see if he wanted to have another go,” Dee told me.
“Another go at what?” I asked then it hit me and I knew. I knew. Shit, I knew. I actually felt the blood draining out of my face before I whispered, “She said it wasn’t important.”
“She lied,” Meems said.
“She ain’t exactly gonna let you in on that,” Jessie noted.
“Oh crap,” I said and then I leaned forward, putting my elbows on the bar and my forehead in my hands.
I didn’t need this shit, not for a variety of reasons. The obvious one being I had enough shit to deal with. The one that somehow seemed more pressing was that I didn’t want Melanie to want Colt back because I didn’t want to find out that Colt wanted Melanie back.
“February,” Dee called.
“Give me a minute to think,” I said to the bar.
“Well, let us in on this thinkin’ ‘cause maybe we can help,” Jessie offered and I straightened.
“How’re you gonna do that?” I asked.
“Well, firstly, by telling you to pull your finger out about Colt and show him you’re ready to try again,” Meems stated.
“Actually, that’s most of how we were gonna help,” Dee put in.
“Great. That works. Thanks.” My tone was pure sarcasm.
“Has he kissed you again?” Dee asked and I pressed my lips together.
“He kissed her,” Meems muttered.
“They played pool too. Colt wiped the floor with her ass.”
This came from my mother who had planted herself by Dee and I hadn’t even noticed.
Mom had, that day, been given free rein to clean out Colt’s second bedroom. She called me at ten o’clock to inform me she’d talked Bud Anderson into delivering a brand new queen-sized mattress and box springs with a standard frame to Colt’s house by three o’clock. She bragged to me for ten minutes about the bargain she got. I didn’t dwell on why Mom was suddenly cleaning out and furnishing Colt’s second bedroom. As I mentioned before, I had enough to deal with.
“How did you know about the pool?” I asked my mother.
“Colt told Morrie, Morrie told Jack, Jack told me,” Mom answered.
Next time I ran away from home, I was going to a big city. The biggest. In China. Where not only were there billions of people, I didn’t speak their language and they had good food.
“Colt wiped the floor with your ass?” Jessie was astounded. “You rock at pool.”
“Maybe she was havin’ trouble concentrating,” Meems suggested.
“Colt leaning over a pool table, I’d have trouble concentrating,” Dee remarked and they all dissolved into loud, girlie cackles.
I took this moment to pry my eyes off them and look around the bar.
Yep, just as I suspected, everyone was watching us.
Time to put things straight.
I leaned in and said low, “This is the deal. I got some whack job murdering people because he thinks he’s doin’ me a favor. He stole my journals, which means he knows everything about me, all my private thoughts.” They gasped through this new news, I ignored it and carried on. “Colt is being cool, way cool, cooler than he needs to be. I’m grateful. I don’t know what that means and I don’t know if I’m ready to explore it. I’m just takin’ this one second at a time because that’s all the strength I got left in me with this shit which is relentless. I try to do more, I’ll unravel.”
They were all staring at me but I kept right on going.
“I need you all to help me keep it together. That means if there comes a time I want to share, I reserve the right to share even though I’m tellin’ you right now, back, the fuck, off.”
They all looked properly chastised, except Mom who looked weirdly proud. But I wasn’t done so I kept talking.
“As for Melanie, she’s a good woman. She doesn’t deserve the shock she had this morning and she doesn’t deserve us chewin’ her up just about now. It’ll play out as it plays out. This isn’t ‘may the best woman win’ because neither of us deserves that and Colt doesn’t either. These are lives were talkin’ about, the lives of decent people and that means Melanie too. Yeah?”
They all looked at each other then they nodded to me.
I looked at Jessie. “And you can tell Ellie, Lisa, Bobbie and Lindy the same thing. Serious shit’s at stake here and Colt needs to stay on target. He doesn’t need more crap to deal with.”
“All right, girlie,” Jessie whispered.
“We were only tryin’ to help,” Meems said.
“I know you were,” I told them, “and I appreciate that. But now you know how it is.”
Before anyone could say anything else, Morrie came up to the girl posse.
“Hate to break this up, girls, but Delilah and me got a dinner reservation,” Morrie announced.
Dee’s face grew slack as she turned to him and asked, “We do?”
“Costa’s, table for four and we better get our asses in gear. We’re late, they won’t save the table.”
“Costa’s,” Dee whispered, her face no longer slack but brilliant and alive and I felt her look in my gut like a happy tickle.
Morrie slung his arm around her shoulders and scooted her off her stool. “My baby’s favorite,” he said. “Let’s get the kids.”
They wandered to the office and I smiled at Mom. Mom smiled back.
“Costa’s. Yowza. Morrie’s pullin’ out the big guns,” Meems commented.
“Sometimes, it’s rare, but sometimes… men learn,” Mom’s voice was heavy with wisdom and experience as she slid off her own stool and made her way round to the back of the bar.
“I think I’ll take a drink now,” Jessie said to me.
“Not me, kids to feed,” Meems told us, “later lovelies.” She blew kisses and then, ten seconds later, blew out the door.
I made Jessie’s drink and was sitting it in front of her when my cell rang. I yanked it out and the display said “Colt calling.” I flipped it open and put it to my ear.
“Hello?”
“Feb, honey, I’ll be late but be there as soon as I can,” Colt said.
“Colt –”
“Soon as I can. Later.”
Then he hung up.
“Colt?” Jessie asked once I’d flipped my phone closed and slid it back in my jeans.
I sighed then said, “Yeah, he caught a bad guy and he wanted to celebrate with Reggie’s, beer and pool at his house.”
Jessie’s lips compressed then slid to the side and stayed there. I watched her as seconds passed and her lips stayed put.
“Hurts, doesn’t it?” I asked.
“What?”
“Keepin’ your mouth shut for once.”
Jessie grinned.
“Bitch,” she whispered and didn’t mean it.
“You’re the bitch,” I whispered back and didn’t mean it.
Then I scanned the bar and saw I had customers who needed drinks.
* * * * *
At five to six, Colt met Sully on the
lawn of Denny Lowe’s house.
“Well, good news is, we know who’s hacking people up in three different states. Bad news is, we got another body,” Sully told Colt and Colt closed his eyes.
When he opened them, he said, “Talk to me.”
“Marie Lowe, Denny’s wife. Found by the cleaner this afternoon. Cleaner’s Mexican and speaks about four words of English. Doesn’t help matters that she’s freaked.”
“How bad is it?”
“Seein’ as we reckon this was the first one and it started all this shit, he hadn’t decided on his MO. Just hacked her to shit with an axe.”
“Christ.”
“Not much left to her. She didn’t have some hair left and the wedding rings on her finger that you can see her wearin’ in pictures around her house, wouldn’t know it was her. He went at it. Kept hacking long after she was gone. Looks rage-driven.”
“We know why?”
“Nope. We’ll start diggin’.”
“We find out she’s the first, whatever caused him to do her could be what sent him on this path.”
Sully nodded.
“How long’s she been dead?” Colt asked.
“Looks like awhile, smells like awhile, don’t know for certain.”
“How often does the cleaner come?”
“Don’t know that either seein’ as I don’t speak Spanish and neither does anyone else.”
“You got an interpreter coming?”
“Yeah, ETA,” he looked at his watch, “maybe five, ten minutes.”
Colt looked away, tearing his fingers through his hair and swore, “Fucking hell.”
“Yeah, you’re sayin’ that now, wait until you get a look at the body.”
Colt turned back to Sully and gave the front door a lift of his chin. Sully nodded and led the way. They grabbed cotton covers for their boots and plastic gloves and pulled them on before they went in.
Colt saw immediately that the place screamed money. He knew Denny was a computer programmer, designed some software that hospitals all over the country used and he made good money but this place said more than that. Marie Lowe had good taste. It was sheer elegance.
Except, of course, the path of blood that stained the foyer and all the way up the wide, curling staircase that was accompanied by the sick smell of death.
Sully led Colt up the stairs while he talked. “Did her in the bedroom in bed, at least that fits the MO. Though he dragged her there, it started in the kitchen, blood all over the place.”
“No one reported her missing?”
“While investigating him we found out she doesn’t work. Don’t know if she missed a nail appointment,” Sully said. “She’s not a local, no family close we know of but haven’t looked into her much. Know she was forty years old. They been married a good long while, no kids. Maybe she met him at Northwestern.”
They hit the bedroom but Colt saw it before he got there because the blood was all over the walls.
Definitely rage-driven.
“Holy fuck,” he whispered when he saw what was left of Marie Lowe’s body.
The Mexican cleaner was going to have nightmares for years.
He turned to Sully. “Get the interpreter to call the cleaner’s family here. Talk to them about assistance. This is gonna fuck with her head for awhile.”
“Got it,” Sully replied and Colt walked fully into the room.
The boys were working the bed still taking photos. Andy Milligan, the coroner, already had the body bag spread out on the floor. How Andy was going to scoop up that mess and get it into a bag was beyond Colt but he was fucking glad that wasn’t his job.
Colt skirted the bed and saw a big, elaborately framed photograph on a bureau and he got close. Wedding picture. Denny and Marie, Marie smiling like it was the happiest day of her life. She looked young in the photo, maybe early twenties. She was pretty, blonde, dark brown eyes, tall, good figure that Colt could see even trussed up with all the material of her dress. Someone had spent some cake on the wedding if that dress and her flowers were anything to go by. Far’s Colt knew Denny didn’t come from money though his Dad didn’t do bad as he was the local pharmacist, which meant probably Marie’s family was loaded.
Colt’s eyes moved to Denny in the photo.
Denny looked like he had a secret. He wasn’t smiling near as wide, he didn’t look relaxed and happy; he looked formal and stiff.
He’d settled for second best.
Colt hadn’t noticed it when he’d seen them around in town because he didn’t pay much mind to Marie Lowe but she looked a fuck of a lot like Feb.
“I know,” Sully muttered from beside him, reading his mind.
Colt turned to Sully keeping his body aimed away from the mess on the bed.
“Chris and Marty got witnesses at Feb’s place,” Colt stated because he knew this to be true, Chris had called him.
“Yeah, another fuck up,” Sully replied. “I don’t know, maybe he thought senior citizens take naps all the time instead of being nosy as shit, but got four folks who saw a man of his description go into Feb’s house. One lady, name is June Wright, says she saw him twice and once, she reports, it looked like he was having trouble with his key. Or at least she thought so at the time. She thought he was Feb’s boyfriend.”
That comment made Colt’s stomach give a sick churn.
“Picking the lock?” Colt asked.
“Probably. Don’t know if you looked, her lock isn’t great.”
“Yeah, it isn’t because she lives in a small town where this shit isn’t supposed to happen. Most the population have locks like that.”
“We better call Skipp, his hardware store is gonna get overrun.”
“Already is,” Chris said, getting close, “day Angie died.”
“Chris,” Colt greeted him.
“Heya, Colt,” Chris replied and looked at Sully. “Got somethin’ interesting.”
“That is?” Sully asked.
“This place has five frickin’ fireplaces. All of them burn wood, not gas, not fake, real wood fire places.”
Colt knew where this was going.
Chris continued. “They all got stacks of wood beside them, all of them, and a big row of wood down the back of the house, three rows deep. So much wood, shit, they’d need five years to get through it all. There’s also a stump for choppin’. Looks like Denny Lowe chopped his own wood and it looks like he did it like a freakin’ hobby. A hobby he liked, like, a lot.”
“This guy is whacked,” Sully muttered.
“Yeah, choppin’ wood as a hobby puts the icing on the cake of this guy bein’ whacked,” Chris said and jerked his head toward the bed.
Colt was thinking of a man who earned a better than modest living but chopped his own wood. He could have had the wood delivered but instead he had to have to have full logs delivered. This neighborhood, the cops would have heard about some fanatical log-chopping neighbor who was cutting down all the trees. Folks in this neighborhood didn’t mind complaining. They paid big taxes and they felt they should get their money’s worth. They called the cops if a neighbor’s kid was playing his stereo too loud at three o’clock on a Saturday afternoon. Hell, it was a miracle they hadn’t received a complaint about the noise made by Denny chopping wood all the time.
Most men chopped wood because they had to, not because they wanted to. Seemed to Colt, Denny Lowe had a lot of rage he’d been workin’ out for some time.
“We need this place combed, someone needs to talk to the neighbors,” Sully said to Chris. “You need reinforcements, let me know, we’ll call ‘em in. The Feds are heading back here and I’ve no doubt they’ll get men on it too.”
“Gotcha,” Chris said on a nod and took off.
“Strainin’ our resources, you on ‘consultative capacity’, Marty havin’ half a brain and needin’ to pull the boys from the task force in every few hours. No cops on the street, we’re gonna miss our quota this month of speedin’ tickets,” Sully joked.
Colt
smiled at him. “This guy’s gonna hit the history books, Sully, you’ll have your own page on online encyclopedias.”
Sully smiled back. “Better get Lorraine to take a decent picture of me.”
Colt slapped him on the shoulder and gave it a squeeze. Then they walked out of the bedroom and made their way down the hall, avoiding the path of blood, and Sully stopped at the top of the stairs.
“How’s Feb doin’?” he asked when Colt turned to him.
“She’s holdin’ it together.”
“She’s surprisin’ me, and everyone, thought she’d flip and take off.” He paused. “It’s a good surprise.”
“Yeah.”
“She gonna be able to see it through?”
“She’s got help.”
Sully looked closely at him. “Yeah. She does.” He took in a breath and said, “Listen, man, rumor is all over about this shit and you and Feb and now I heard from Lorraine that Melanie –”
“She called this morning.”
Sully swayed back in surprise. “Fuck, really?”
Colt nodded.
“Colt… man, you should know the rumor –”
“Rumor’s true. She called, wanted to have dinner, talk about things.”
“You havin’ dinner?” Sully asked quietly.
“Nope.”
Sully’s eyebrows went skyward. “That’s it? ‘Nope’?”
“That’s it.”
“Jesus.”
“She shoulda called three years ago, Sully,” Colt told him.
Sully gave him a look then grinned and said, “Feb.”
Colt saw no reason to deny it and confirmed, “Feb.”
Sully rocked back on his heels, still grinning but now grinning like a crazy fuck, he was so happy. “What chance you think you got?”
“Don’t know. You’ll have to wait and find out, just like me.”
Colt wasted no more time, he was late as it was. He gave Sully a “Later,” turned and jogged down the stairs.
Sully called after him, ribbing in his voice, “Spendin’ the evening at your spot at J&J’s?”
“Spendin’ it at my house with Reggie’s, beer, a pool cue and Feb,” Colt called back not looking up as he spoke, not giving a shit who heard. He hit the bottom, strode through the elegant foyer and right out the door.
* * * * *
Colt carried the six-pack to the front door, Feb carried Reggie’s pizza box.