“Yes,” Colt lied instantly.
Her head moved to the side, almost like Dad’s had done, her neck slowly twisting and extending. She knew he was lying.
Then she straightened her neck, took in a breath and announced, “Your father’s gettin’ outta prison.”
“Good for him,” Colt said but he didn’t sound pleased, he sounded courteous in that way people were courteous when they were in a position where they were forced to be polite but they really couldn’t care less.
“He’s dried out, Alec. We both have. For good this time. We found the church,” she told him.
“Good for you too,” Colt’s tone hadn’t changed.
She bit her bottom lip, exposing her teeth, not like Colt did when he was angry. She was anxious and Colt wasn’t giving her anything to go on.
Then she said, “I thought you might like to know, maybe you might like to –”
Mom cut her off by saying, “He wouldn’t.”
Mary turned to Mom, moving slowly still, cautious, uncertain and maybe even scared or perhaps shy and she said quietly, “Jackie.”
“You got a helluva nerve walkin’ in here, Mary Colton,” Mom told her and Dad moved closer to Mom.
“I’m tryin’ to do right,” Mary said to Mom.
Mom let out a short, breathy, angry laugh before she asked, “Do right?”
“Jackie,” Colt murmured.
But Mary said over him, “Yeah, Jackie, do right.”
“Well, you’re forty-four years too late,” Mom snapped.
“Jackie, darlin’, let’s you and me go to the office,” Dad said.
“Not leavin’ Colt in here with her,” Mom said back.
“Jackie, he’s –” Dad stopped talking because Mom gave him a look and it was the kind of look that would make anyone stop talking, even Dad. Then Dad’s gaze shifted to Colt and Mom’s shifted back to Mary.
I decided to wade in before Mom really let loose and I took a small step forward but didn’t let go of Colt’s hand.
“Mrs. Colton,” I called and she turned back to look at me, “it was nice of you to come by today and let us know about Mr. Colton. But how ‘bout you go on home and you give Colt a chance to think about all this. You want, you can come with me to the office, I’ll get your number. He wants to call, he’ll get in touch. That sound okay?”
Colt’s hand squeezed mine and I squeezed back. Through this Mary looked back and forth between Colt and me.
Then she said, “All right, Feb. That sounds fine.”
I gestured behind me with my head and said, “Let’s go.”
I released Colt’s hand but my eyes moved to his as I turned to the office. His face was still blank and stony, nothing there to read, giving nothing away. If he looked at his mother like that, it was a wonder she didn’t run out the door.
I walked to the office and Mary followed me. Standing by the desk, looking awkward and out of place, her hand clamped around her purse strap and clenching it convulsively, she gave me her phone number while I wrote it on a pad on the desk.
When I was done writing the number, I straightened but saw she was looking at the closed door.
Then she turned back to me and, hand still clenching and unclenching her purse strap, she said in a rush, “I heard you were interviewed by the FBI. I heard your ex-husband was killed in St. Louis. I heard the police were at your apartment. I heard Chip Judd’s been workin’ at Alec’s place, puttin’ in a system. I heard a lotta things, February.” Her eyes were getting bright and I could see the whites of her knuckles, she was clenching her purse strap so tight. “He lied to me out there, Alec did. You’re not safe.”
“We’re fine, Mrs. Colton.”
“You’re not safe.”
“We’re fine.”
She shook her head, the movements quick and erratic, then she stopped and said, “I done him wrong.”
She was right about that so I kept quiet.
“I know I did. I know. My boy,” she whispered the last two words, did those head shakes again and her eyes got brighter, “he always…” she started then stopped then started again. “You were… you meant the world to… he and you…” more head shakes and then she said, “he got you back and you’re not safe.”
“We’re just fine, Mrs. Colton.”
The tears hit her eyes but didn’t spill over, just shuddered at her lower lids, the overhead lights illuminating them so much they shone, and she stared at me, her eyes never leaving mine.
Then she whispered, “You’re lyin’ too.”
I had no response because she was already turned and walking to the door. I followed her out and she walked to Colt. She didn’t do it quickly, she did it hesitantly, guarded, like she was ready to bolt if he made a lunge.
“I hope you call, Alec,” she told him and quickly looked at Mom, not wanting to give Colt the chance to respond, knowing if he did what he’d say she wouldn’t like then she said softly, “I’m sorry, Jackie. You’re right, I know, I have a nerve and I know you won’t believe this but I was just worried about your girl and my boy.” Then before Mom could speak, she scurried quickly out the door, still clutching her purse.
The minute the door closed, a murmur of conversation hit the bar and I looked up to Colt to see he was staring at the door.
I grabbed his hand and gave it a squeeze. “You okay?”
He looked down at me and gave my hand a tug, bringing me closer. “This happens from time to time.”
“It does?”
“You okay, dude?” Morrie asked from behind the bar.
“Yeah, Morrie,” Colt replied to my brother but his eyes were on my mother. I looked to her and she still appeared fit to be tied.
“She knows you got trouble, she even said it, and she still waltzes in here –” Mom groused.
“Jackie, darlin’, leave it be,” Dad cut her off.
“Jackie, you know this isn’t a big deal,” Colt told Mom but he was lying, if it wasn’t a big deal, his hand would not nearly have broken mine. Twenty-eight years he’d been separated from his parents and that time had not diminished their power over his emotions.
Mom gave Colt a good long look, then her neck snapped around and she looked at Dee. “Delilah, make me a G and T and use a heavy hand.”
“I’ve never done a G and T,” Dee whispered to Morrie as Mom bellied up to the bar.
“Ain’t hard, babe,” Morrie said, turning toward the back wall filled with mirror-backed shelves of liquor and Dee’s eyes came to Colt and me.
“I don’t even know what a G and T is.”
“Gin and tonic, Dee,” I told her.
She nodded, lifted a hand and muttered, “Got it. I can do that, heavy hand,” and she turned to Morrie.
I looked back at Colt and prompted, “This happens from time to time?”
His hand came to my hip and brought me even closer as he leaned his back into the bar. “Last few years, every once in awhile. She’s been tryin’ to dry out.”
This was news.
“Tryin’?” I asked.
“She falls off the wagon a lot,” I nodded and he continued. “She’d come to the house.”
I put my hand to his chest and whispered, “Sorry, babe.”
“She usually needs money.”
“You give it to her?”
“Did in the beginning, or Melanie did. Melanie left, I kept up a coupla times, then quit.”
My eyes slid to the side, Mom was about five stools down, two of those taken by patrons who were pretending, badly, not to listen, but Mom also had Mom Hearing so I shifted to Colt’s side, my back to Mom and the customers and whispered low, “Mom know about this?”
“Nope,” Colt answered.
“She didn’t ask for money this time.”
“Nope.”
I got closer. “You really okay?”
“Nope.”
I dropped his hand, lifted mine, slid my fingers around his ear before they glided down to curl around his neck and I murmured,
“Baby.”
He bent his head so his face was closer to mine and he murmured back, “Better now.”
God, I loved him.
To communicate this, I went up on my toes, touched my nose briefly to his and then rocked back.
“You gonna see your Dad?” I asked.
“My Dad’s standin’ in this room,” Colt answered and my chest got tight, not in a bad way, just that I was glad he found a good replacement.
“Colt –”
“Ma’s annoyin’ but I can handle it. The man whose seed made me doesn’t exist in my world.”
“Colt –”
“Beat the shit outta Ma, beat me, killed two kids, he doesn’t exist.”
I gave his neck a squeeze and for his sake, let it go. “Okay, baby.”
Colt looked to the door then back to me. “She loves you, you know.”
“What?”
“Ma, even when I was with ‘em and she was drunk, she used to talk about you all the time. Said you reminded her of her.” I fought my lip curling but he caught it and his arms slid around me pulling me close. “She used to be somethin’, Feb, would get smashed and show me pictures. You wouldn’t believe it unless you saw it but, honest to God, she used to be somethin’.”
More evidence that I’d made the right decision to pull my shit together before it was too late.
I nodded and said, “This sucks, we were havin’ a good day.”
“Yeah,” he agreed.
I smiled at him. “But day’s not done and tomorrow’s Sunday.”
Colt smiled back and repeated, “Yeah.”
“Don’t worry about Costa’s tonight. Come here, Dee’s on, Jessie’s watchin’ the kids. We’ll have family night at J&J’s.”
“Sounds good.”
I pressed into him and said, “I’ll pick a better song, one we can dance to.”
“I don’t dance, honey.”
This was true, he didn’t. He preferred to watch when I did it. I knew he could move though, because he would dance to a slow song. He was a great lead, his hips would sway, taking mine with them, and he had fantastic rhythm. If I’d had any experience at the time, I would have realized this prophesied good things to come.
Thinking about it, I said, “We’ll put some music on when we get home.”
He grinned and said, “Anything you want, baby, but when we dance at home, we’ll be horizontal.”
I grinned back and replied, “That works for me.”
* * * * *
Colt went to the Station to find out what was happening with the robbery investigation and I took over letting Dee shadow me at the bar. Making drinks and making change wasn’t rocket science but we were relatively busy and when it got busy you had to have a good memory and be able to multitask.
I saw George Markham, the head honcho of Markham and Sons Funeral Home, walk in still wearing a suit from funeral duties. He slid in beside Joe-Bob, caught Dad’s eye and Dad moved down to his end of the bar.
There were two funeral homes in town but most folk chose Markham and Sons. This was mostly because it was on the main drag. Therefore, if you had a funeral to host, you’d get maximum attention from people driving by, counting the mourners standing outside chatting or having a smoke. The location of Markham and Sons allowed the all-important assessment of the post-mortem popularity of the deceased.
Amy was quiet but young and well-liked and just the young part would draw people out because that kind of tragedy had a way of doing that. She was a bank teller so a lot of people knew her even though they didn’t really know her. When Colt and I walked through the milling crowd outside Amy’s viewing, she had to hit three and a half out of five on the popularity scale. This was saying something considering Colt told me Amy had no real friends left when she died.
I knew George. He was the kind of man you knew in town because no one could escape spending some time at his business. I knew him but he rarely came into J&J’s. He liked to golf and would drink at the clubhouse. Though, when Dad was running J&J’s, George would come in from time to time to shoot the shit.
Therefore George being there, and looking like he was coming direct from a funeral, meant something was up.
I sidled down to George and Dee followed me. Dad felt us coming, started to turn and George and Joe-Bob’s eyes came to us as we got close.
“Feb, darlin’,” Dad said, “before the crowd hits for the night, maybe you should show Dee how to restock.”
“I already know that,” Dee replied, obviously wanting to know why George was there too. “Feb taught me last Sunday.”
Dad looked at Dee wanting to say something but biting his tongue.
I looked at George.
“Ain’t no secret, Jack,” George said to my Dad.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
Joe-Bob shifted on his chair. I saw it out of the corner of my eye but I kept my gaze on George.
“Got Angie at the home, had her for awhile. Talked to her parents twice, they say they got no money for a funeral. I don’t find someone who’ll help, Angie’ll be buried –”
“I’ll pay,” I said instantly, cutting him off and kissing that kickass vacation good-bye.
I knew why he was there. Firstly, Angie spent a lot of time in J&J’s but secondly, and more importantly, Dad had a way. Years ago, the town had a little league team that was so good they made it to some championships that meant the entire team had to fly to Japan. Problem was half the kids on the team didn’t have parents who could afford to send their kids to Japan to play baseball. Therefore Dad fleeced every customer out of a donation to help the kids go and gave a hefty donation himself besides. Same with Whitey West when he lost his insurance and couldn’t afford his chemo treatments. Same with Michaela Bowman, who used to work at J&J’s, when her juvenile delinquent son fell asleep in bed smoking pot and burned out half the inside of her house luckily escaping before he got too injured himself, but insurance wouldn’t pay so Dad collected.
“Feb,” Dad said.
“Morrie and I’ll kick in too,” Dee said.
Dad turned his attention to her. “Delilah, darlin’, you and Morrie got two mouths to feed.”
“So?” Dee asked Dad.
“Don’t got much but I could give you a little,” Joe-Bob put in.
“What’s this about?” Lanie Gilbert, a stool down from Joe-Bob, asked.
“Lookin’ for money to help pay for Angie Maroni’s burial,” Dee informed her.
“I’m in,” Lanie said and I stared at her. Lanie came into J&J’s a lot, not to get trashed mostly because she was social and liked the selections on the jukebox. Though I’d never seen her spend time with Angie, in fact, like most women, she gave Angie a wide berth.
Before any of them could have second thoughts, I asked George, “How you wanna play this?”
George glanced around and said, “Anyone wants to contribute, they just bring it down to the home and the boys and I’ll sort it.”
“What about her headstone?” Lanie asked.
“We’ll figure somethin’ out,” George told her.
Lanie got up from her stool. “I’ll come down, got my checkbook with me, and I’ll look at some catalogues of headstones.”
I had no idea if there was such a thing as headstone catalogues and I looked at Dee who was pressing her lips together. She caught my eye and shrugged her answer to my non-verbalized question.
“We’ll get the word out, George,” Dad said as George moved toward Lanie who was moving toward the door.
“‘Preciate it, Jack,” he said. “Angie, she was…” he trailed off then said, “no matter what, town should take care of their own.”
“Yeah,” Dad replied, George nodded, gave a little wave and followed Lanie out the door.
George was so right; a town should take care of their own. And they would, Dad would see to that.
I looked at Dee and asked, “Bud draft is gettin’ low. You wanna learn how to change out a keg?”
“Hi
ghlight of my day, hon,” she replied, though this was a lie. We both knew her highlight of the day was watching Morrie play basketball, even if he lost. For me, watching Colt play was the bottom of three top highlights for my day and, we danced horizontal tonight, it’d be kicked down to four.
On that thought, I grinned at Dad then at Joe-Bob and then Dee and I changed out a keg.
* * * * *
As he walked from the bar down to the Station, Colt’s phone rang. He pulled it out of the back pocket of his jeans, looked at the display, flipped it open and put it to his ear.
“Yeah, Sully.”
“You close to the Station?”
“Walkin’ there from J&J’s now.”
“Double time, man, Evelyn and Norman Lowe just showed with a big, ole box. We put ‘em into interrogation one and we’re gettin’ ‘em some coffee.”
“I’ll be there in two minutes.”
“Good, but not waitin’, man, want them fresh. I’m goin’ in.”
Colt flipped his phone shut and shoved it in his pocket. He was one hundred percent certain he did not want to know what was in the box that Denny Lowe’s parents had brought to the Station. He still hoofed it double time.
He hit the Station and it was strangely quiet. This was because it was Saturday, a weekend, so the day would be relaxed. It’d get busy in the night.
This was also because a serial killer’s parents were on the premises carrying with them a box and it was likely the observation room next to interrogation one was shoulder to shoulder.
Colt’s eyes hit Connie through the windows in dispatch and she was watching him. She was talking into the microphone that curved around to her mouth but she also pointed to the ceiling, pumping her hand twice then she gave him a thumbs up.
Sully was already in with the Lowes.
Colt took the stairs two at a time, dumped the cup with the dregs of his Meems’s in the trash and hit the observation room.
He was right, it was packed. Without a word, everyone shifted aside so he could have a bird’s eye view.
“You understand this is difficult,” Colt heard Norm Lowe say when he hit the one-way window.
Norm was standing behind and beside his wife’s chair, his hand on her shoulder. Evelyn Lowe was seated, handkerchief sandwiched between both her hands and her face, her neck was bent, her shoulders shaking.