Trailer Park Noir

“Really? And your wife still goes out – how often?”

“Well, that’s the thing, see. At first, it was once every month. Then pretty soon, it started to be once every couple weeks. Then once a week. Now it’s a couple, three times a week, sometimes more.”

“Have you told her you don’t like this?” Reznick said. “Does she know how you feel?”

“Oh, yeah. I’ve tried. That never goes over well. It always turns into a fight.”

“What’s her argument?”

“Her argument? She says we married real young, and we did. Just outta high school, Melanie got pregnant, and we got married. The baby was stillborn. We waited a long time before tryin’ again. I thought the marriage – that we – I thought everything was great, y’know? But somethin’s wrong if she’s doin’ this two- three times a week. I’m afraid she might be gettin’ herself a drinkin’ problem. Mention that to her and she flies into a rage. I think she might be takin’ drugs.”

“Was this sudden,” Reznick said, “or were there warning signs? Can you look back now and see things happening that might have led up to this?”

Carey’s eyebrows were pretty bushy, and they huddled together thickly in the middle of his frown. “Y’know, there have been things, and I’ve noticed all of ‘em, and I’ve even brought a couple up to her, but it was always a mistake.”

“What kind of things?”

“Well… “

Carey was hesitating because that was private stuff, and he was reluctant to discuss it with a stranger.

Reznick’s head bobbed up and down and he said, “I’m sorry, I should’ve pointed out to you by now that everything you say in this office is absolutely confidential. Everything you say stays within these walls. So you shouldn’t be afraid to say anything.”

Carey nodded. “Okay, I’ll buy that. It’s just that – see, these days, most people’re real eager to go on TV and talk about how crazy their families are, y’know? But that’s not the way I was raised. I was raised to keep my dirty laundry off the outdoor line, where it didn’t belong in the first place.”

“That’s very respectable, Mo.”

“Thanks. Course, it ain’t gettin’ me nowhere with my wife.”

“What about your wife, Mo?” Reznick said. “What do you want me to do?”

Carey dipped his roll in the baked beans and took a big bite. He chewed for a while, then said, “Last week, I’m sittin’ at home with our daughter, watchin’ a rerun a some dumb show I didn’t like the first time I saw it, when I realized, why should I do nothin’ while she’s out kickin’ up her heels?”

As Reznick listened, he ate his last rib, and forced himself not to groan happily at the flavor of the barbecue.

“I know all the husbands and boyfriends of her girlfriends, see,” Carey went on. “I figured I’d call ‘em over and we could play poker, or play video games on the X-Box, or somethin’ – anything besides wastin’ another second on television, for cryin’ out loud. So I call the first one – name’s Ted Haker. Him and me went to high school together. We even dabbled in college together over at Shasta College. It wasn’t for me, but Ted went off and got himself a business degree. Now he owns a small chain of electronics stores here in northern California. Ted’s always fulla good stories. He’s dealt with a lot of strange people over the years, and he’s fulla real funny stories. So he’s always fun to have around. So I call Ted. I ask him if he wants to come over and do somethin’. Ted acts kinda funny, and he says, ‘Tonight?’ And I say, ‘Yeah, tonight.’ And after awhile, he says, ‘Okay, yeah, I guess so. What’s Melanie gonna be doin’?’ I thought that was a funny thing for him to ask, and I said, ‘Huh?’ And he said, ‘What’s Melanie gonna be doin’ while we’re playin’ video games?’ And I said, ‘What the hell you talkin’ about, she’s out with your wife and the others.’ And Ted chuckled and said, ‘My wife’s right here with me.’ That’s when I got this cold feelin’ inside. I called the other husbands and chatted, found out their wives were home, too. That feelin’ got worse. That helpless feelin’ you get when you realize something important to you is out of your hands, beyond your control, y’know? Somethin’ that’s not really lost, but that maybe you never had. It’s like bein’ in a earthquake. Ever been in a earthquake, Marc?”

“Yes, I have,” Reznick said.

“It’s a helpless feeling, ain’t it?”

Reznick nodded.

“So is this feelin’ ya get when you know somethin’s real wrong, somethin’ outta your hands. Somethin’ bad.”

He liked to tell a story, this Mo Carey. Reznick wished he would pick things up a bit. “What was your somethin’ bad?” Reznick said.

“Melanie wasn’t out with her friends – she was out with… well… someone else.”

“Any idea who?”

“None.”

“You want me to find out?”

“Yeah, that’s right. On top of her goin’ out so much, she’s been buyin’ stuff. Just things now and then. But they ain’t all that cheap, you know? A dress here, some perfume there. Pricey stuff. And I don’t know where she’s gettin’ the money. Then I got to thinkin’… maybe she ain’t buyin’ ‘em. Maybe somebody’s buyin’ ‘em for her.”

They stopped talking to eat more coleslaw and beans and ribs. Then Carey said, “I don’t know where she goes, but I think her girlfriends do now. I think they’re all in on it, tryin’ to hide it from me.”

“You think she’s seeing another man?” Reznick said.

“What else would she be doin’ at night?”

“You might be surprised how many bad things people can get up to at night without having affairs. You want me to follow her?”

“Yeah. I don’t know when she’ll go out again. Maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow night. She comes home from work, throws somethin’ together for my dinner, feeds the kid, and she’s gone. Usually by six-thirty, seven o’clock. Not every night, but often enough for it to be… well, you know, outrageous. Here she is my wife, and I hardly see her anymore. I pick the baby up on my way home from work – she stays at my mom’s during the day – then go home. I get there ‘bout the same time she does. Before I know it, she’s gone again.”

“Give me your address in Happy Valley, tell me what kinda car she drives,” Reznick said. “I’ll wait for her to leave, then I’ll follow her. I’d also like a picture of her, if you have one.”

Carey stopped eating and wiped his hands and face on the paper towel. He took his wallet from his back pocket and started looking for a picture.

“What kind of work you do, Mo?”

“Construction. I’m workin’ on the new jailhouse in Redding.”

“Ah. And your wife?”

“She works in a dentist’s office.” He handed Reznick a picture of Mrs. Carey.

“What’s her name?” Reznick said.

“Alicia.”

Reznick nodded.

The woman in the picture was smiling, but she had the kind of face that would look angry and mean if she weren’t. She was a plain woman with straight, stringy, dirty-blonde hair. She had a broad face with small blue eyes perched above chubby round cheeks that became more pronounced when she smiled.

“Look,” Carey said. “Before we go any further, I gotta know – how much is this gonna cost me?”

Reznick told him his rates and how much he’d need up front.

“Okay, well, that’s a little steep for me. But I’ll handle it.”

“I assume you want me to start right away,” Reznick said.

“Tonight, if you can. Like I said, I don’t know if she’ll go out or not. If she ain’t gone by seven, she’s probably not goin’.”

“How has this affected your marriage?”

Carey shook his head. “We ain’t had sex in a long time. She’s never interested. That’s another thing makes me think she’s seein’ someone else. Hell, she don’t even seem that interested in our little girl. And she’s been actin’, I dunno, kinda… kinda unstable lately. Mood swings, know what I mean? One minute, she’s fine. The next, she’s