“Oh, no, you’re-”
“I’m only kidding, Pearl.”
Jody stood up abruptly, as if to say, I’ve had enough of this! She wiped her mouth with her napkin as if trying to remove her lips, and then stomped out of the dining room and upstairs.
Pearl started to go after her, but Quinn laid a big hand on her shoulder. “She’s only trying get out of helping with the dishes,” he said.
“She’s gonna screw up her internship, with this Mildred Dash crap,” Pearl said.
“That’s how she’ll learn to control her temper.”
Pearl gave him a look and then sat down again and took a sip of her wine. Quinn sat back down across from her.
“You haven’t figured her out very far,” Pearl said.
“No, I haven’t.”
“She wasn’t as angry as she seemed.”
“I know. She’d rather be up in her room in a snit than down here helping with the dishes.”
“That’s not what I mean. She was working us. She cares about the Mildred Dash business, but not that much. She’s using that case for an excuse to snoop at the Enders and Coil offices.”
Quinn didn’t quite follow Pearl. Not a new sensation.
“She’s wants us to know she’s onto something,” Pearl said, “but my guess is it’s bigger than some stubborn woman who might get evicted in the name of progress. What Jody was fishing for was our tacit permission to go ahead and sneak around where she’s working, and you gave it to her.”
“I did?”
“Yes. It obviously amused you that she was taking risks for some youthful empathetic reason she didn’t begin to understand. And remember you bought into that penumbra-of-the-law bullshit.”
“I wouldn’t say I bought into it.”
“Jody would. She’s on to something bigger,” Pearl said. “Believe it.”
Quinn considered what Pearl had said. For it to be true, Jody would have to be a damned good actress. And how could they know how good she was? She didn’t have a track record with them. “Maybe we should talk to her about it.”
“She wouldn’t talk. Remember, she comes already lawyered up.”
Quinn nudged half-eaten ravioli with his fork. “You should know,” he said. “You’re her mother.”
Upstairs in her room, Jody read again some of the Enders and Coil files she’d pirated from the firm’s computers. She’d broken the encryption code easily, and was now trying to make sense of what she suspected.
If it turned out to be true, what did it mean?
“You’re gonna ruin your figure with this pizza,” Jorge, the kid from Mexitaliano, warned Mildred Dash.
Jorge was nineteen and skinny enough that he’d never had to worry about eating too much pizza. The regular deliveryman when Mildred ordered food from the restaurant, Jorge had developed an obvious crush on the hermit- like Mildred, trapped as she was in her apartment.
Mildred, acutely aware that she was almost old enough to be his-my God-grandmother, kept him at a polite distance. Not that he’d have nerve enough to make his feelings known.
She paid him for the pizza, and the soda in its tall white foam cup with its plastic lid, along with a generous tip. He was, after all, one of her only lifelines to the outside world. Though she did sometimes leave the apartment, she always took great care not to be seen or followed. She didn’t put it past Meeding Properties to have her under almost constant observation.
Jorge gave her a large smile and a lingering look at her ankles extending from beneath her long robe. “Thanks, Missus D.”
“You’re welcome, Jorge. By the way, have you seen Cookie?”
Cookie was Mildred’s large golden tabby, a cat she’d shared her life with for the past several years.
“Ain’t seen him,” Jorge said. “But I’ll watch for him when I leave, bring him back to you if I see him.” The big smile again, meaningful. “Maybe there’ll be some kind of reward.”
Jorge, Jorge…
“He isn’t really lost, Jorge, just not home.” Mildred hoped that would throw cold water on Jorge’s naive sexual ambitions.
“I’ll keep an eye out for him anyway. Anything for you, Missus D.”
Mildred thanked him and watched him pocket the money and go out the door. She locked the door behind him, then went to the window overlooking the street in front.
Jorge came into sight below, mounted his delivery bike, and pedaled away, weaving through construction and destruction debris. It was dusk, and she hoped he’d be clear of the vast and unlit deserted area before it became dark enough to be dangerous.
She stood at the window for a while after Jorge was out of sight, looking for some sign of Cookie, telling herself not to worry, he was probably happily hunting mice or rats.
It wasn’t like Cookie, though, not to appear this time of evening for his regular tuna-flavored meal.
Mildred went to the kitchen and ran the electric can opener, just in case Cookie was hiding somewhere in the apartment. The sound of the opener was usually an irresistible invitation to dine.
No cookie.
She remembered that when she’d called for the pizza there had been a text message on her phone. She went to the phone and read the text.: “if u have a cat don’t put him out.”
The anonymous message was from yesterday. Written in time but read too late.
She waited. Hoping. A lump of worry in her throat.
No Cookie.
Just before midnight Mildred was awakened by footfalls and what sounded like muffled laughter out in the hall. Then something soft but not completely soft slammed into her door and thump ed to the hall floor.
She knew what it was. She worked the doorknob, opened the door a few inches, and looked out into the hall with the chain on to be sure. She returned to her bed and wept.
47
Leighton, Wisconsin, 1986
T he lost dog posters had brought no response. They faded in the sun and wrinkled in the rain and mists of mornings. Rory no longer felt a twinge of guilt when he walked or drove past them.
In fact, the posters lifted his spirits now in an unexpected way. He knew logically that he’d done the right thing with Duffy the dog, so there were no longer twinges of regret. Now the posters reminded him of Sherri Klinger. Sometimes when he drove past them, he smiled.
Rory suspected his mother knew he was sneaking off with the car when she was away, and sometimes even when she was in the house asleep. She was becoming worn down, and simply didn’t want to confront him again.
He was driving better all the time, obeying traffic laws so he wouldn’t have a run-in with the law, parallel parking with greater skill so he no longer bumped up on the curb or dented cars in front of or behind him.
She must know he was driving more frequently and becoming better at it. Or maybe his mother was looking the other way when he “borrowed” the car because she approved of him seeing Sherri Klinger.
Yes, that was possible.
Sherri was, in everybody’s estimation, a Nice Girl. Meaning she was possibly still a virgin. She would be good for Rory.
Well, he went along with that.
On the pretense of searching for Duffy, Rory would pick up Sherri at a prearranged spot-sometimes Creamery Curb Service, near the back, where people drinking soda or milkshakes in their cars were facing the other way and
