Then he dropped to his knees, like the garbage drum was an altar.
But I had to hand it to him. He didn’t stay down long, got right back up on his feet, straightened himself, and staggered back a few paces, badly dazed but maintaining his balance, barely.
I was watching this as I made the trip over to where my purse had landed. I picked it up, got a gloved hand into it.
Meanwhile, Clint was looking around at the buffet of potential weapons that was the trailer’s yard, and before long he found just the right brick, hefted it, and then came at me, surprisingly fast, the brick clutched in a death grip and raised high with smashing in my head its obvious intended use....
The nine millimeter came out of my purse as if of its own volition, but it was me who fired off the round that cracked the air and caught him in the left kneecap.
Clint yowled, tossed the brick limply, harmlessly, to the ground, and did a brief, horrible (but I must say fairly comic) one-legged jig before going down on his remaining good knee, clutching the bloody mess that used to facilitate walking.
“Freeze,” I said. From my purse, I got my cell out and muttered to myself, “Always get that wrong...‘freeze,’
The police dispatcher came on the line.
“Man’s been shot,” I said.
I answered several questions, one of which was, “Who shot him?”
“Well, I did,” I said. I thought that had been obvious, but maybe I could have been more clear.
Mrs. Hazen was in the doorway of the trailer now, baby no longer in her arms, but I could hear it crying, from within its mobile-home womb.
The woman seemed stunned, her flesh suddenly ghostly pale, except for the tattooed part. “What... what have you done to Clint?”
She jumped down and rushed over and took her whimpering, fallen brother-in-law into her arms. She cradled this other child as he groaned and moaned and cried. And gripped his bloody shot-up knee, of course, red oozing between his fingers.
“You...you’re a monster,” she said.
Apparently meaning me, not Clint.
I motioned at her with gun-in-hand, somewhat irritably I’m afraid, because I was still dealing with the dispatcher on the cell.
“You bitch!”
“Quiet,” I commanded. “Can’t you see I’m on the phone?...Yeah, Ripley Trailer Park, Lot 16.”
The dispatcher asked me the nature of the wound, and I said, “His knee. So far.”
Then the dispatcher asked me what I meant by that, and I said, “Well, you’re not here to judge the situation, are you?”
And I shut off the cell.
I went over and leaned down next to Mrs. Hazen and the brother-in-law she was comforting. To me it seemed clear that the two of them were extra-special close, for in-laws.
I said calmly, “I need to know everything
She screwed up her features and all but spat, “Why the hell should I tell you, you lousy fucking bitch?”
“Because,” I said, “we both lost men we loved.”
She snorted. “Tell it to Oprah.”
I raised an eyebrow, nodded to Clint. “Okay, then, Mrs. Hazen. Care to lose another man you love?”
And I placed the snout of the nine mil against the temple of moaning crybaby Clint.
Mrs. Hazen’s chin lifted defiantly. “You don’t scare me.”
But Clint’s eyes were as huge as a cartoon rabbit’s. “
I thought that was uncalled for, the “c” word. Kind of brave of him, though, with my nine mil’s nose puckering his flesh.
He was raving, “Rhonda, please, God, tell her anything she goddamn wants to know!”
Mrs. Hazen was looking at me carefully now, her expression having shifted to one of horror.
I guess I looked a sight, with blood all over my face from Clint hitting me.
But I swear my expression was bland as toast when I said to her, “Yeah, Rhonda. Help me.”
In about half an hour, a pair of EMTs—one of whom had been nice enough to take time out to clean up my face and provide a bandage for where Clint’s fist had cut me near my right eye—loaded a still uncomfortable Clint Hazen on a gurney into their ambulance.
Mrs. Hazen, baby in her arms again, was watching, distressed, standing near her trailer, joined by a couple of female neighbors in her general age range and apparently frequenting the same tattoo parlor. One woman was smoking, the other had a can of beer, possibly wanting to have it ready should Rhonda or maybe her baby need a sedative.
Two uniformed police officers, a Hispanic woman and a white male, both of whom I’d already spoken to at more length than seemed to me necessary, were on the periphery. So was I, but on a different patch of it.
I’d been asked to wait, and I wasn’t sure why. Then I understood, when an unmarked car, a black Crown Victoria, pulled in next to where the local police car was angled in and parked.
Lt. Rafe Valer stepped from the Ford, shut the car door hard, like he was trying to make a point, and strode toward me. His tan double-breasted trenchcoat made him look every bit the detective he was.
I met him halfway.
“Since when,” I said, “does Chicago Homicide check out shot-off kneecaps in Calumet City?”
He smiled warily, shook his head, his hands on his hips. “Your name on a police call’s always a red flag, Michael. Emphasis on the red.”
I cocked my head. “Just
Suddenly his eyes were awkwardly searching the cinder-strewn ground. “Well...of course, I know she’s the wife of the, uh...”
I got right in his face, my nose maybe an inch from his. “Wife of the bastard who killed Mike?”
“Michael....”
I backed away some, but still stayed right on top of him. “Just what the hell kind of investigation did you boys in blue do for your fallen brother, Lt. Valer?”
Rafe sighed. His eyes didn’t meet mine as he admitted, “Not much.”
His frankness shook me, my indignation freezing......then melting.
Now his eyes came to mine, their dark brown bottomless with regret and, yes, sorrow.
He said, “Michael, I had no inkling of this ‘Event Planner’ at the time of Mike’s murder, and, goddamn it, that’s the genius of this son of a bitch—leaving us nothing to investigate.”
“Really?” I jerked a thumb toward Mrs. Hazen and her friends. “You coulda talked to Miss Trailer Park of 1994 over there.”
His eyes tightened. “You’ve already talked to her...?”
My arms were folded and my expression was smug. “She was real forthcoming, after we got down to, you know, just talking...one widow to another.”
“What did she tell you?”
“Oh, for starters, all about the phone calls that her jailbird soulmate got, right after he got out—phone calls that got him all riled up—seems the caller had some very exact information.”
Rafe’s eyes widened, then narrowed.
“Such as one anonymous call that provided the name and address of the honeymoon motel where we’d be starting out our marriage, Mike and me. And, thanks to the caller, ending it.”
Then the lieutenant of Homicide was rushing past me, to talk to Mrs. Hazen his own self.
I let him, and just slipped away.
Figured my work here was done.
