The Baby Blue Rip-Off (9 page)

The evening paper wasn’t out yet, so she (and the rest of the town) wouldn’t know the details as yet.

I nodded.

“You did find the old woman, didn’t you? I heard that much on the radio. You did find the body and contact the police?”

“Well, it was the sheriff’s department I contacted, but yeah, I did all that.”

“Pat says you told... I thought he said police, but maybe he just said ‘cops,’ which could just as easy be the sheriff’s people, right?”

“Right.”

“Anyway, Pat says you told the cops or whoever that you saw his car there. He says you’re trying to get this murder pinned on him. He thinks....” She smiled again, but at the same time her eyes teared up. “... he thinks you and I are seeing each other, having an affair, and have cooked up this scheme to get at him.”

“Oh Christ!”

“It sounds crazy, I know. I can’t believe Pat will still believe that when he’s sober, but right now I don’t think being reasonable is high on his list.”

“No, I don’t suppose so. And he says he’s going to beat hell out of both of us?”

She nodded.

“Maybe we should call the police,” I suggested.

“No!” she said. “I couldn’t stand the embarrassment. He is... Cindy’s father, after all.”

“Okay. I can understand your point of view. But where do we go from here?”

“Is it true? Did you report his car as being at the old woman’s place?”

“It’s true,” I said. “And it
was
there. But Pat is clear; he reported the car stolen, prior to the murder. So I don’t see where he’s in much danger of getting framed.”

“He said something about that, too. Mumbled something about maybe you did that; maybe you stole his car to get him
involved; maybe you killed that old woman hoping to pin it on him. Ridiculous, I know, but tell that to a man crazy-drunk.”

Not so ridiculous. I was everybody’s favorite suspect. Except Brennan’s, oddly enough.

“What do you want me to do, Debbie? Do you want to stay here for a while?”

“No. I don’t want to alarm Cindy—she’s with Mother now. Pat’s never bothered Cindy, or Mother, so I think the two of them’ll be all right.” She shivered.

“Where are you living?”

“We have an apartment downtown. Could you... would you stay with us tonight? I can tell Cindy you’re a friend of the family or an uncle or something.”

This was the dream of a lifetime, but I had hoped to start poking into things tonight, contacting a few people who I thought could help me uncover some things regarding Mrs. Jonsen’s murder. But maybe this was worth the time at that. Maybe Pat Nelson
was
involved in the murder and was being either cute or stupid.

“Okay,” I said. “Be glad to.”

She leaned over, touched a hand to my face. “Mal.”

“Yeah?”

“Can I do something I wanted to do for a long time?”

I shrugged. “Sure.”

“Good,” she said, and smiled her tiny smile.

And kissed me.

As old, remodeled apartments go, Debbie’s wasn’t so bad. It was located on Second Street, in the block where the downtown makes its last gasp and the slope of West Hill takes over. About a third of the places of business on her block had new brick fronts and had witnessed considerable self-initiated urban renewal by forward-looking landlords; but she had her run-down neighbors, too: several bars, a pair of sagging, empty warehouses, and the old union hall.

Below Debbie was a nice bar/restaurant owned by one of the conscientious landlords, who had seen to it that the apartment was freshly wallpapered and supplied with new kitchen appliances. The rest of her apartment, though, was clearly much as it had been, say, fifty years ago. The ceilings were high and of gray, faded plaster edged with plaster rococo—not unlike the wood carving at Mrs. Fox’s, only the work of a far less talented craftsman. The floors were bare dark wood, the varnish mostly worn away. It had apparently come furnished, because a secondhand-store decor was mixed oddly with things Debbie and her husband had bought, like the twenty-five-inch TV and the stereo console in the living room.

After climbing up the narrow and gloomy stairwell, we entered into the daughter’s room, with its pink wallpaper and fuzzy pink throw rugs, scattered like discarded old sweaters of
Debbie’s. A door straight ahead led to the bleak, brown master bedroom; a doorless archway to the right led to the kitchen, and through the kitchen was the living room, with its light blue wallpaper smattered with dark blue flowers, soft-focus lighting coming from standing lamps. A pleasant enough, very much lived-in apartment.

An apartment a man had lived in. In the living room was a gun rack with three balsa-wood models of Winchester rifles, as well as two crossed swords on a tin shield, and over the bed were two pseudo-authentic dueling pistols on plaques—phallic symbols all, left behind (consciously or not) to remind anyone who entered this apartment that a man had been with the woman who slept here.

“Can I ask you something?” I said.

Debbie had decided to leave her daughter at her mother’s for the night. We were sitting on a black imitation-leather couch in the living room, sipping glasses of Pepsi. Debbie didn’t keep beer in the house. It was cold in there, an air conditioner chugging away in the bottom of a big bay window across the room. I was half-turned, studying a large frame behind the couch, a frame exhibiting half a dozen license plates; the two plates closest to my line of vision were number two from one year ago and number one from two years ago.

“What do you want to ask?” she said.

“Something about your husband.”

“Let’s hear it.”

“Why in God’s name does he go lusting after these damn license plates? What in hell possesses him?”

“What makes anyone go after something?” she said. “What makes anyone try to be first at anything?”

“But something so absurd, so pointless....” I stopped myself short. I was going condescending on her.

“I suppose I agree,” she said, with her tiny smile, “but it’s one of the more harmless things a man like Pat might decide to pursue. But I must say I don’t enjoy camping out in the cold dead of winter on the courthouse lawn, teeth chattering all night, waiting to dash into the building next morning and fight and claw toward the license counter.” She laughed. “Have to admit, though, that year we got license plate number one was kind of a thrill.”

I shook my head, laughed, and said, “To each his own, I guess. You think Pat’ll come around tonight and bother us?”

“Hard to say. Could be he won’t show up at all. Could be he’ll show sooner than tonight... could be any time now. He’s already roaring drunk.”

“How can he get away with that, getting drunk on a Friday afternoon? Doesn’t he have a job?”

“He used to work at Ribbed-Stone Silo, but he quit a few months ago and went to work for a friend of his who lets him keep loose hours. This friend, Chet Richards, runs a nursery.”

“Your husband changes
diapers
for a living?”

She let out a giggle that took me back to junior high. “Plants and trees, not kids, silly. Anyway, it’s a good job, in its way... not particularly good-paying, as you can see by our surroundings... but he’s got lots of freedom, and besides, Pat really likes outdoor work.”

“Can I ask some more questions, on the personal side?”

“You can ask whatever you want to, Mal, if you’ll just stay here with me. I don’t like the idea of having to face Pat when he’s the way he is right now.”

“Okay, then. When kind of marriage has it been, anyway? I mean you’re not newlyweds; you’ve been married for what, at least twelve years? Cindy’s eleven.”

“Not quite that long.” Her cheeks reddened a little. “Cindy came along pretty early that first year we were married, if you know what I mean.”

I knew what she meant, and shouldn’t have embarrassed her like that, but I’d completely forgotten that she had dropped out of school midway through her last semester as a senior, to marry Pat Nelson.

“It’s been a good enough marriage,” she said, still a bit flushed. “Pat’s a quiet person, usually. Spends a lot of time doing male things... hunting, poker with his buddies a couple times a week, sports on TV on the weekend... but he loves little Cindy. He’s been good to her, and treated me pretty well until this drinking thing started. Me, I’ve had my own friends to spend time with, and Cindy, and Mother.”

“When did it go sour?” I said. “How long has this beating and drinking nonsense been going on?”

“Not long. Less than a year, I’d say. He didn’t like his job at Ribbed-Stone—not anymore, anyway. See, there was a change in management; the son of the guy who founded the silo company took over when his dad retired. This son is a college-kid type: nice enough, but not Pat’s idea of a boss. He was discontented because of that, started drinking a couple nights a week, and started beating on me along with it. I thought when he changed jobs he’d get back to normal. No such luck. Oh, he was happy in his new job, happier anyway, but his drinking pattern was set by then, and he kept right on with it. And...” She touched my arm, moved closer on the couch. “... he thinks I’ve been
cheating on him. He’s very paranoid about it, as you can tell from this crazy idea he has about you and me having an affair.”

“Is there... any basis to his suspicions? After all, you did say he was out with the boys a lot.”

She looked hurt for a moment, then said, “Of course not. I’m too busy for any stupid hanky-panky silliness. I have Cindy to raise, and I have my job.... Well, I used to have it, anyway.”

“You lost your job?”

She nodded. “I was a secretary. Worked for William Morgan.”

“The attorney?”

Another nod. “But when Pat started in on his drinking and all, I got less efficient and was let go. Haven’t found anything since.”

I could understand how she could lose her job; a legal secretary has to be perfection personified, and outside pressure of the sort her husband had exerted on Debbie would’ve been plenty to throw her off.

“I’ll tell you something, Mal. I’ll tell you something about how faithful I’ve been to that damn husband of mine. Not only was I faithful to him when he was going out with his stupid friends all the time, playing poker and hunting and that damn drinking; not only that, but you’re the first, the very first man I’ve been alone with since Pat moved out of here.... Even now, even when I’m through with the bum, I’ve been faithful to him. Out of dumb habit, I guess. Isn’t that silly?”

“Kind of,” I said.

“I think it is,” she said firmly. “Silly.”

She was sitting very close now.

“Me too,” I said. “Silly.”

“Silly,” she agreed.

The fuzzy pink sweater was soft and warm under my hands; it slipped off so easy, and I felt the soft coolness of her flesh. Her bra was one of those no-bra things and came off in a whisper; her breasts were large without sagging, her nipples small and as pink as her sweater. The skirt came off as easy as the bra, then the pantyhose and panties, and we kissed and fondled. My clothes gradually came off somehow or other, and soon I was nuzzling the full breasts of the girl I’d so longed to kiss in junior high, enjoying the slightly plump but nicely formed body of Debbie Lee, a small woman but with plenty of everything, proof positive that good things come in small packages, and we made love there, slowly, on the cool imitation leather of the couch, beneath the framed license plates.

When the heat of the moment subsided, the cold of the air conditioner took over. My exposed backside was invaded by goose pimples, and they spread to the rest of me and then to the cooling body beneath me. We jumped up and got into our clothes as quickly as we’d gotten out of them. The only pause in the procedure was as I was slipping my shirt on, when Debbie took a moment to caress my bruised side with gentle, sympathetic fingertips.

Dressed again, we sat shyly next to each other on the couch, and as the coldness of the air conditioning had pretty much nipped in the bud any afterplay, we began to kiss, tentatively, like high school kids out parking for the first time. We must’ve kissed for an hour, making up for all that lost time from our adolescence. We kissed till our lips were numb. Necked is what we did, but no heavy petting. For some ungodly reason, after our horny humping on black imitation leather, I found myself chastely restraining my roving hands, touching nary a breast, plumbing not a panty. You figure it out.

After a while we stroked each other’s cheeks—a simultaneous, coincidental touching that made for a nice moment, giving a semblance of depth to our hastily thrown-together relationship. No talking had gone on for some time. We had nothing in particular to say to each other; this was just a renewal of
that thing between us that had never gotten off the ground in previous years. There was a juvenile aspect to our coupling, our necking; we were a pair of would-be Wright Brothers who had given up the dream years ago and then come back in an age of jets with a terrific new glider.

We got up from the couch. Debbie straightened her clothes and poked at her hair, none of which affected the pleasantly tousled, just-been-had-and-liked-it look she had about her. I went to the big bay window and glanced out at darkness. We’d necked ourselves into evening. Considering how I had planned to get into my Sherlock Holmes number today, time had been wasted. But sex is never a waste of time, really. Or if it is, name some better way to waste it.

She asked what I wanted for supper, and I told her.

“Mal,” she blushed, “don’t be gross.”

A teenager’s word: gross. It was charming to hear her say that, somehow.

“All right, then,” I said. “What have you got that’s quick?”

“I make a mean plate of spaghetti. I have some French bread I got at the store this morning that’ll go with it perfect.”

“Good. Can I help?”

“What?”

“Can I help? Help you in the kitchen?”

“Are you kidding?”

“No, I’m not kidding. Why would I be kidding?”

“I don’t know. It’s just that Pat....”

“Pat never helped you in the kitchen.”

“Nope,” she admitted, with a little grin. “Woman’s work. He’s never offered to help once.”