Chapter Twelve
In fact, Vanessa's crying jag only lasted for about forty-five minutes. That was about thirty minutes too long, to be honest. I never let on, though. Mom would have been really proud of me.
"Nessa." Her head lay on my shoulder and my arm was pinned between her and the sofa. We'd sat down after about fifteen minutes. "Hon, would it be okay if I move my arm? I think it's fallen asleep."
She made sort of a burbling sound and leaned forward. I leaned back and shook my arm. Vanessa wasn't crying anymore, but she wasn't exactly not crying, either. I got a handful of toilet paper from the bathroom and took it to her.
My stomach wouldn't stop growling. I launched a search for food. Search being the operative word. The cupboards were practically bare. All I found was a quart of milk, some stale bread, a half-empty jar of cheap store-brand peanut butter, and a couple of those little packs of jelly you see in restaurants. I fixed us each a sandwich and a glass of milk.
Vanessa's eyes and nose were red, but she'd finally managed to stop snuffling. I handed her the food and sat down next to her, turning my body so we were slightly facing each other.
"It was crazy," she said. "I just looked down and saw that watch and I don't know what came over me. It was like an out-of-body experience or something."
More like out-of-mind. "So you just took it?"
She looked at me for a long time. I thought she was going to start crying all over again. Not good.
"Yes," she finally said. "I just took it."
I bit into my sandwich. It tasted wonderful. But then, I hadn't eaten anything since early that morning. In that time, I'd found a dead body, worked, witnessed two fights, and instigated a mental breakdown. All I wanted to do was go home, get in the bed, and pull the covers over my head. Then, when I woke up, I'd find out it had all been just a really bad dream.
"Like I said, I haven't said anything to the police yet. I wanted to talk to you first," I said. "But, you have to tell them about the watch."
"I know. I've been a basket case all day. I just knew they were going to come and arrest me. I jumped every time the phone rang. I could hardly look Beth in the eye." She was snuffling again. "What the hell am I gonna do?"
"How about this? I'll call Tim and explain it to him. He'll know what to do to make it be all right. Maybe he can keep your name out of it somehow."
Of course, Tim was currently very mad at me, and probably not speaking to me, but I didn't mention that.
"Do you really think so?"
"There's a good chance. Tim's cool." She seemed convinced. Personally, I was a lot less hopeful.
I called Tim and got his voice mail. I tapped my fingers against the receiver while I listened to his message. It was a lame take off on "Dragnet". Tim thinks he's so funny.
"Tim! Call me! It's me, Marty," I hollered into the phone.
"I need to talk to you right now. It's an emergency. Tim! Call me. Damn it!"
He either had his phone off, didn’t have a signal, wasn't speaking to me, or was in a deep sleep. Knowing Tim, it was the deep sleep. I'd just have to go over there. I hated to leave Vanessa, but she seemed to have almost returned to her normal self. Her eyes were fatigued, but no longer looked dead. Her color was almost normal, too. In fact, she seemed to be even better than she'd been earlier in the day. I guess she was relieved.
"Are you going to be okay by yourself?" I asked her.
She said yes, all she wanted to do was take a hot bath and go to bed. I told her I'd take the watch to Tim, explain everything, and it would all be okay. I hoped like hell that I was right.
We went up to her bedroom to get the watch. The bedroom was almost empty of furniture, too. Her mattress lay on the floor and her clothes were stacked in cardboard boxes. She opened the closet and reached into the back. She'd stuck the watch in the pocket of a winter coat.
I studied it before putting it in my own pocket. It wasn't just any old watch; it was a Rolex. A real one. The question I had: how the hell could a garbage man afford an expensive watch like that? Knowing Warren, my guess was that it was stolen.
Vanessa gasped when she caught sight of herself in the mirror that was propped up next to her bedroom door. Her hair looked terrible, some of it cut almost to the scalp.
"Oh God!" she moaned, "How am I ever going to fix this?"
I shook my head. "I'd offer to help, but it'd probably look even worse if I did."
She smiled weakly. I took that as a good sign.
"Maybe Charli can help, she's good at this sort of thing. And you know you can trust her," I said.
She thought about it. "I know. You guys are the best."
We went downstairs and I called Charli and told her Vanessa was scared to stay alone. I left out the part about the watch, but told her that Vanessa had “accidentally” messed up her hair while trying to cut it. Charli said she’d be right over as soon as she put on some clothes and shoes. Once Charli arrived, I gave Vanessa a hug and told her not to worry. She and Charli stood on the front porch and watched me as I climbed into my car.
"Marty," Nessa said, "thanks for everything."
"No problem. See you tomorrow," I said.
No problem? I brushed away tears as I pulled out of the driveway and headed over to Tim's apartment.
Tim's truck wasn't out front and he didn't answer the door. My apartment building is right next to his, so I went home. It felt so good to finally be there. I wandered around looking at everything, like you do when you've been out of town for a few days.
I scratched Delbert's ears and gave him a 'sorry I've been neglecting you' snack. I tried Tim's number several times and kept getting his voice mail. Between attempts, I sent three texts, basically saying, “Call me! 911” as I paced around the apartment, trying to slow the adrenaline that still pulsed through me. At about eleven-thirty, with still no signs of life from Tim, I called Mom to tell her I had decided to just stay home.
She surprised me. I'd expected her to give me a whole bunch of grief, but she didn't. She sounded distracted and sort of breathless. All she said was 'fine'. She didn't even ask me how the remote broadcast had gone. I filled her in anyway, (a sanitized version) told her about Pilazzo's, (again sanitized) but I don't think she was really listening.
I heard Daddy whispering something to her, but couldn't make out what he was saying. She interrupted me right when I got to the part about Zach wanting to go out with me, said she'd call me the next morning, and hung up on me. If I hadn't known better, I'd have thought they were having sex or something. I stared at the receiver, wondering. Surely not.
I tried Tim again, sent him another text, this time a meaner version of “call me”, then called Charli to check on Vanessa. She told me Vanessa had fallen sound asleep about ten minutes after I left. “I just can’t get over this house. What on earth?” Charli said. “It looks like she’s sold everything she owned.”
I hesitated, but decided to tell Charli about the watch. I might not act like it, but I trust my sister implicitly. “I need to talk to you about something. But you’ve got to promise not to say anything to anybody about this. Not even Mom."
"You know I won't."
I told her about Vanessa stealing the watch.
"What the heck was she thinking?"
"She wasn't. She said it was like she had an out-of-body experience. I'm really worried about her."
"Me too. I feel so guilty. I guess I haven’t been over here in, I don't know, six or seven months. No, wait, it was right after O'Del's memorial service. I guess that's about eight months. I've hardly seen her since then. She's come over to the house a few times for coffee, and I've kept her kids a couple of times, but until today, I don't think I've seen her except in passing for about a month. I can’t believe how skinny she’s gotten.”
"I think she's having financial problems. I mean you see how empty the house is, and I don’t know if you’ve looked, but she doesn’t have much food, either."
Charli
took a deep breath and blew it out. "I guess things must be worse than I'd thought. She told me once that O'Del didn't have any insurance when he died. That's why she just had him buried up there in Minnesota where he was killed. I think she had to take out a loan even for that. He'd been laid off for several months, you know, and she said they had to cash in their insurance so they could pay bills."
"But Vanessa's a nurse. She makes decent money."
"That's true, but probably not enough to support a family of four. If her mortgage payment is like ours, I imagine that it alone takes most of her salary."
"You don't think that's why she took the watch do you? For the money, I mean."
"I don't know. I hope not. That makes it seem worse somehow."
"I wish I could help her, but I barely make enough to support me and Delbert."
"I know you do. But I'll bet Vanessa wouldn't take money from her friends, anyway. She's a proud girl. Her daddy raised her that you don't take handouts."
Vanessa's folks had been much older when they'd had her. Her mother died when she was in high school, and her dad when she was twenty. She didn't have any other family that I knew of. And O'Del had been from California or Washington or somewhere out west. Vanessa had never mentioned his family, so I didn't know if he had any relatives, either.
I sighed, "I know. I just feel so bad for her."
We talked about some other things, including the murder. I told her what Vanessa had let slip about Wart and Beth being separated.
"I can't believe it! Well, I can believe it, but I can't believe we hadn't heard about it. Nobody in Glenvar can keep a secret."
"That's for sure. Speaking of secrets, do you know anything about Roberta Thompson?"
"You mean the drinking?"
"Yes. How long has she been like that?"
"Since Fred, Jr. died."
Zach's brother, who was the same age as Charli, died two years ago. He had been sick for years with cancer.
"I saw her once when I took the van in to get it inspected," Charli said. "Mom told me that Roberta just sits in the office all day, sipping gin and tonic. She doesn't even bother to hide it anymore."
"It's so sad. And I feel so sorry for Zach. You should have seen how sweet he was toward her. You could tell it just broke his heart to see her like that."
"I feel sorry for Zach, too. It was bad enough when Fred, Jr. was alive. To hear her talk, he was the only child she had. Now, she's practically canonized him."
"Hell of a thing to have to try and live up to."
"I know."
I told her what had happened at the remote broadcast. I also filled her in on what Tim had told me at Pilazzo's about the investigation.
"I'll bet Nancy Winslow did it," Charli said. "She's certainly big enough, and mean enough, to do it. If we asked around, we'd probably find out that she had a motive too." She sounded excited.
"Charli, this isn't any of our business. It's a police matter, you know." I rubbed Delbert's sleek black coat. "But, she certainly tops my list of suspects."
"Listen, why don't we poke around a little. We won't interfere with the investigation, just gather information. This whole story would make a great book."
Uh-oh. Charli had apparently found the idea for her mystery novel.
I figured I'd better get her mind off of her potential best seller and onto something less troublesome. I told her about Zach wanting to go out with me. Bad idea. I'd no sooner got his name out, when she butted in.
"I'm so glad. I really like him. He's such a nice guy. Good looking, too. It's about time you started going out and having fun. It's been almost a year since, well, you know."
"Charli! Geez! Between you and Mom! I wish y'all would just back off. That's the last thing on my mind. Geez!" I said, exasperated as hell, sorry I'd brought it up.
"Good grief, Marty. You don't have to be so touchy. It's not like I said you should marry him or..."
I interrupted. "I gotta go. Talk to you tomorrow."
After we hung up, I tried Tim a few more times, still not getting an answer. I didn’t bother sending any more texts. His truck was still missing and his lights were still off, too. Where the heck was he? It was after midnight and he had to be at work at six-forty five.
My adrenaline rush finally gave out, so I took a long, hot bath, soaking in the lavender bubble bath Mom had given me for Christmas until the water started cooling, then went to bed. Delbert curled up next to me and I rubbed his tummy. He started snoring after about ten minutes. Sleep didn't come quite so easily for me. I flipped and flopped, replaying the events of the day over and over in my head.
I was walking over toward a green trash tote carrying a dirty diaper when the diaper started ringing. I opened my eyes and fumbled around for the telephone.
"Marty, are you okay? Wake up, honey. Do you know where you are? Are you feeling all right?"
I groaned. "I think I'm in hell. What time is it?" I asked Mom.
"Three-fifteen. I just wanted to make sure that you weren't in a coma. Daddy was worried about you. He said that you're supposed to wake people with concussions up every couple of hours." She covered the receiver and told Daddy that I was still alive. "Go on back to sleep. I'll talk to you in the morning."
"Why me? Why do these things always happen to me?" I asked Delbert. He didn't answer.