The first thing I heard was the racket of a crowded room or maybe a public space. There were people talking and things being moved and slammed down. There was laughter too.
“Easy?” Her voice was loud to get over the din and also hoarse because she wanted to whisper. But as strained as the words were I still knew who it was.
“Idabell?”
“Oh, it is you. Thank God.”
“Where are you?” I asked.
“A little place on Santa Barbara. I have to talk to somebody here. Oh, I’m in a lot of trouble, honey. A lot of trouble.”
Somebody laughed in the background, a good joke being told in some other part of town. There was music but its words and melody were lost in the static of the telephone wire.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Somebody killed my husband,” she whispered. “And, and …”
“And what?”
“And his twin brother … Roman.”
“Who killed them?”
When she said, “Easy?” I knew that she wasn’t going to give up any information right away.
“What?”
“How’s Pharaoh?”
The cur raised his head from his corner of the couch. Maybe his dog ears picked up the name on her lips.
“He’s fine,” I said.
“Can I talk to him?”
“Talk to him? No. The kids’re ’sleep. But don’t worry, he’s fine.”
“I have to get away, Easy.”
“Idabell, what happened? What happened to your husband?”
“I don’t know,” she whimpered.
Pharaoh raised his head a half an inch more.
“I left home just like I told you. Holland was high, I guess I didn’t tell you that. He’d been drinking, drinking.” She repeated the word as if she were trying to convince me of its accuracy. “And then he went out.”
“Where’d he go?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “But as soon as he was gone I left with Pharaoh.”
“Why were you so scared, Idabell?”
“He’d gone crazy.”
“Crazy from what?”
“I don’t know, Easy,” she whined. “I don’t know.”
“And did he call you at school?”
“Yes.”
“And you went to meet him?”
There was an explosion of laughter somewhere in the restaurant.
“No,” she said. “He said that he was going to come down to the school to get me and Pharaoh. He said that he would pull me right out of the classroom if I didn’t come. You know he would have done it. So I ran. I’m sorry that I left Pharaoh with you but I was scared that if Holly found me with him he would have done what he said.”
“And so then you went to go’n tell Mr. Preston about this?”
“How did … I mean, yes. I went to tell Bill, because I was scared. You had already helped me with Pharaoh. I couldn’t ask for any more than that.”
“Uh-huh.” I was thinking that Holland wasn’t the only one to ever hate that dog. “So why are you callin’ me if you got so much trouble? We don’t even know each other.”
“Don’t be like that, Easy. I meant yesterday. You’re the first person in a long time that I feel safe with.”
“What about Mr. Preston?” I asked.
She paused for a moment and then said, very softly, “I called you, not him.”
“Because you feel safe with me?”
“Yes.”
“But what about me?” I asked.
“What do you mean?”
