Kathy Hogan Trocheck - Truman Kicklighter 01 - Lickety-Split (10 page)

Truman turned his head so that his good right ear was facing the television. He could make out the words “nursing home” and “condition of release,” but that was all.

“What’d he say?” he asked Pearl. But Pearl shook her head. “I don’t know.”

A moment later Howie was ushering Mel away from the camera. He brought Mel to the back of the courtroom and motioned Pearl and Truman over.

“What happened?” Pearl asked. She grasped Mel’s hand, but he tried to shake her off. She bit her lip.

“The judge threw us a curveball,” Howie said. “I’d gotten the state’s attorney to agree to dropping the charges with no stipulations, but the judge decided different. He’ll drop the manslaughter charge, but only if we get Mel admitted to an approved nursing home.”

“A nursing home,” Pearl gasped. “I want him with me. I’ll take care of Mel. He doesn’t need to be in a nursing home. That would kill him.”

“The judge doesn’t see it that way,” Howie said. “It’s a take-it-or-leave-it situation. If we don’t accept, Mel will go back to jail and he’ll be tried for manslaughter. We don’t really have a choice, Pearl.”

“Mel?” Pearl put her face close to her husband’s and cupped her hands on either side of his face. “Mel? Do you know me today?”

His pale blue eyes blinked furiously and he worked his mouth, but no sound came out.

“Oh God,” Pearl groaned. “He’s never been this bad. Never.” She looked over at Howie. “When?”

The lawyer shrugged. “As soon as we can find an available bed. How’s your insurance?”

“Insurance? Mel always took care of all that.”

Truman put an arm around Pearl’s shoulders. “Mel was always so organized. I’ll bet he has all the papers right together. There’s probably an insurance card in his billfold. It’s funny. My Nellie was the one who took care of that stuff in our family. When she got sick, I had to take over. I can help, if you like.”

“I’ll have my secretary start calling around to look for a bed on Monday,” Howie said. “Pearl, are you sure you can handle Mel by yourself for a while? Do we need to think about a private-duty nurse?”

“We’ll be fine,” Pearl said fiercely. “Just fine.”

The dining room was almost empty by the time Truman sat down for lunch. It was nearly one now. The meat loaf special would be gone and so would the good desserts.

He’d picked up a discarded newspaper in the lobby on the way in. Now he unfolded it and began looking for the story of Mel’s arrest.

He found it on the front of the local section. A twelve- inch story. More than was allotted to a domestic knifing in one of the city’s public housing units, much less than the thirty-two inches allotted to a story about the arrest of Norman Giddens, the veteran weatherman on Channel 9, who’d been picked up for soliciting an underage prostitute in a strip joint over in Tampa.

Truman allowed himself a small chuckle over the police mug shot of Giddens, who had apparently tried to cruise incognito, disguising himself with a cheap toupee and ridiculous-looking glued-on sideburns and mustache.

Jackleen appeared from nowhere, sliding a steaming plate of meat loaf, mashed potatoes, and LeSueur peas in front of him.

“Here,” she said. “I saved you a plate.”

“Thanks,” Truman said, meaning it. “I was afraid I’d have to settle for the salmon patties.”

“You mean the sawdust patties? I wouldn’t feed them to my worst enemy,” Jackleen said. “How’d it go in court this morning?”

He handed Jackleen the newspaper. She set the coffeepot down so that she could read it.

“Says here the police confirm that someone was questioned for the murder, but there hasn’t been an arrest,” Jackleen said. “Sure looks like an arrest to me when they put handcuffs on somebody and put him in the back of the police car.”

Truman finished chewing and took a sip of coffee. “These reporters today, they got computers, faxes, everything. The only thing they don’t have is an instinct for news.”

“What’s your instinct telling you now?” Jackleen asked, glancing around to make sure Mrs. Hoffmayer wasn’t watching.

“Mel didn’t do it,” Truman said. “Period.”

“Okay,” Jackleen said. “I believe you. But if Mr. Mel didn’t do it, who did?”

He put the cup down. He’d dreamed about the girl last night. Rosie. So young. He could see the long dark hair in his dream, dark and damp with her own blood. But in the dream Rosie had had Cheryl’s face.

“She hung out at racetracks every night,” he said.

“Gamblers are a rough bunch. And she was young. Maybe she was mixed up with dope or something.”

There was a small photograph of Rosie in the newspaper. It looked like the kind of picture they put on an ID.

“She had a nice face, huh?” Jackleen said. “Twenty years old. I wonder how she knew so much, to be able to pick winners like that. Mr. Mel, he said she was real smart about greyhounds.”

“She was smart,” Truman said thoughtfully. “Too smart, maybe.”

He drank his coffee and brooded about it. “Maybe she got in with the wrong type of man,” he said. “Girl that pretty is sure to have a boyfriend.”

Jackleen nodded sagely. “Uh-huh. Now you talkin’. Probably some sorry-ass dude put her out there sellin’ them sheets. Like a pimp.”

“Doesn’t sound like you have a very high opinion of men,” Truman said, wiping a bit of gravy from his mustache.

“See, men my age, they’re not like you, Mr. K,” Jackleen said. “Don’t want no commitment, don’t wanna settle down, work a job, make a home. All they wanna do is be runnin’ in the street.”

“Surely not all of them,” Truman said.

“All the ones I been mixed up with,” Jackleen said. “Sorry, that’s what they are. Now, take somebody like you. How long were you married?”

“Forty-five years,” Truman said softly. “My sweetheart and I were married in 1949. Six weeks after we met.”

“You’re kidding,” Jackie said. “You only knew her six weeks and y’all got married?”

“No point in waiting around,” Truman said simply. “Never regretted it either. We had our fights. I won’t tell you we didn’t. But Nellie and I, we were a team. Best friends.”

“You miss her, huh?” Jackleen said. Out of the corner of her eye she saw someone waving frantically to catch her attention.

“Gotta go,” she said hurriedly. “I saved you back some apple crisp. You gonna want some more coffee with that?”

“Yeah,” he said, meaning he missed Nellie.

He was polishing off the apple crisp when Ollie rushed up.

“I been looking all over for you,” he said breathlessly. “We got a meeting, upstairs in the card room, four o’clock this afternoon.”

“For what?”

“Christ! The church takeover, what else?”

“I’d forgotten,” Truman admitted. Or maybe he’d deliberately put it out of his mind. How much was this Cosmic Unity outfit going to charge for an apartment? Truman had a room with a bed, a dresser, two easy chairs, and a nightstand. There was a tiny bathroom with a tub but no shower. For this he paid $325 a month. And after he paid his bills and helped Cheryl out a little, he had precious little left.

“Can’t,” he said quickly. He had no stomach for meetings today. “I promised Cheryl I’d go take a look at her bathroom sink. It drips.”

“You gotta be here, Truman,” Ollie insisted. “We need somebody nosy to keep these stiffs from pulling something over on us. We gotta stop ‘em, Truman. You gotta help us.”

Truman nodded his head toward a wizened gentleman sitting at a nearby table. The man looked away suddenly, as though he’d been gazing at something fascinating on the other side of the room.

“You want nosy, get Arch Barchie over there,” Truman said. “The guy’s a professional busybody.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Ollie said carelessly. “He’s coming. Look, it’s only one o’clock now. You go over to your kid’s house, fix the plumbing, you can be back by four. Did I mention we’re having cake and coffee?”

“Not interested,” Truman said firmly.

Cheryl sat on the commode lid, watching while her dad turned the old red toolbox upside down. He glanced over and gave her a smile. She knew what he was thinking, that it was like the old days when she’d come into the bathroom on Saturday mornings and watch him shave, maybe even lather up her own face and shave with an imaginary razor.

Truman pawed through the tools laid out on the tile floor. “What happened to all the tools I gave you?”

Cheryl waved a hand. “Chip’s been in them again. The lady across the street gave him an old busted-up radio and he took it apart out in the garage. He’s convinced he can fix the thing.”

“Chipper,” Truman hollered. “Bring me a wrench. On the double.”

He started to get up from the floor. “Ow,” he said, wincing and rubbing his knees. “You know you’re getting old when it hurts just to sit on the floor.”

“You’re not old, Dad,” Cheryl said, “just experienced.”

“My ass,” Truman muttered, rubbing there too. It had been cold on that tile floor.

“Here you go, Grandpa.” Chip stood in the doorway, his arms full of well-used tools. “Is one of these a wrench?”

“That’s a pair of wire-cutters,” Truman said, pointing. “That’s a socket wrench. And this,” he said, taking one in his own hands, “is an adjustable wrench. Now watch how I tighten this doohickey, so maybe you can fix it for your mom next time around.”

Chip stood with his face inches away from his grandfather’s, intent on watching the repair in progress.

“There,” Truman said, wiping his hands on a towel. “Done.”

“What would I do without you?” Cheryl asked, giving him a peck on the cheek. “You’re staying for dinner, right?”

“Yeah, Grandpa, stay,” Chip begged.

“I don’t know,” Truman said. “I had a late lunch.”

The truth was, he was tired. He couldn’t get Mel out of his head. Seeing him like that. Like a baby in a used-up body. He wanted a nap. Wanted to close his eyes and not think about hotel buyouts and Alzheimer’s disease and a pretty girl named Rosie, dead at the age of twenty.

“Can’t do it,” Truman said. “I promised to be at a meeting at four o’clock.”

The three of them walked out to the kitchen. The house was small, only two bedrooms, a bath, the abbreviated kitchen, and a living room. “Perfect for just the two of us,” Cheryl had proclaimed the first time she’d driven by it with her parents.

Her marriage had lasted just six years. When Chip was two, Alex announced he was feeling suffocated in their relationship. Now he lived in Arizona with his new wife and their children, and he was always behind in his meager child-support payments.

Cheryl opened the refrigerator and handed her father a can of beer. He took it and opened it, but not without protesting. “You don’t need to spend your grocery money on beer for me, honey. You’ve got tuition coming up, don’t you?”

“Already paid for,” Cheryl said proudly. “I’ve been doing some tutoring on the side. And the books I need next quarter I’ve already bought used. We’re in clover, aren’t we, Chipper?”

Her son nodded, biting into an apple.

“Besides,” she added, “one six-pack every two weeks isn’t going to break me, Dad. What kind of meeting are you going to?”

Truman put the beer on the table and sat down at the dinette. He looked around and liked what he saw. New peach paint on the walls, crisp gingham curtains fluttering at the windows. On the shelf above his head ran a row of pink-flowered cups and saucers, the china he’d brought back for Nellie after an assignment in Germany. Cheryl was like her mother, she liked things to be special.

He took a long sip of beer. She’d bought the premium stuff, not the generic kind he bought.

“Oh, everybody in the hotel is all stirred up,” he said, trying to sound casual. “New management or something. Nothing for you to worry about, honey.”

“You like that place, don’t you, Dad?” Cheryl asked.

She worried about him sometimes, living in that tiny room of his.

“Like it fine,” Truman assured her. “There aren’t many places like the Fountain of Youth left around St. Pete. Downtown used to be full of ‘em, the Pennsylvanian, the Princess Margaret, the Seabreeze. Now, I guess, people buy time shares or they go to one of those old folks’ towns up there on U.S. 19. Sun City, those kind of places.”

“I remember the Princess Margaret,” Cheryl said. “When I was a junior I went to Boca Ciega High School’s prom there.”

“With a hippie kid whose hair was longer than yours,” Truman said. “When your mother saw that tuxedo jacket he was wearing, with bell-bottom jeans, she nearly bust a gut laughing.”

“I’ve got a picture of us that night around here somewhere,” Cheryl said, “but what the heck was that guy’s name?”

“I’ve forgotten,” Truman said. “Maybe I’m getting Alzheimer’s too.” His expression was suddenly sad.

“You?” Cheryl scoffed. “The man who won three trillion dollars on Jeopardy! in one week? The man who remembers every card played in Hearts? Alzheimer’s? Never happen.”

“That’s what Pearl thought about Mel,” Truman said. “Last night, when we got to the jail, he thought I was his pa. And he doesn’t know Pearl at all.”