Working Stiff

“Good.”

“Good? I admit to contemplating the homicide of a woman who is now dead and you say good? ”

“Absolutely. One of the most important things you’ll learn in this job is who you can trust. Had you told me you’d never thought about killing the woman who stole your husband, I’d know you were lying to me. It’s perfectly natural to hate the other woman, to wish all kinds of pestilence on her, and to dream up at least six miserable ways for her to die, preferably with you as the executioner.” He stops and gives me another long look. “Though I gotta say, if your husband was baking his cake in someone else’s oven when he had you at home, he must be a total idiot.”

I’m flattered. And more impressed with Arnie each passing minute. “Thanks,” I say, bestowing him with my best smile.

“So do you think your old man might have offed her?”

My mood does an immediate nosedive. I don’t know what has me more upset, the thought that David might have killed Karen or the fact that I even care.

“I don’t know. I don’t think he did it. But I saw—”

I stop, realizing I’m about to tell Arnie about the argument I witnessed. Until I have a chance to evaluate things a little more I don’t want that information to get out. But Arnold Paranoianegger zeroes in right away. “What? What did you see?” he pushes. I know in my heart he’ll never let it go and I resign myself to spilling the beans. But then the phone rings and I realize that for once, the Fates are on my side. My salvation proves painfully short-lived, however.

“Yeah, she was here,” Arnie says into the phone, widening his eyes at me. “But she just this second left. Want me to see if I can catch her?” He listens, says, “Hold on,” and then hits a button that sends the caller to Hold Hell. “It’s Detective Hurley,” he tells me. “You know him?”

“Oh, yeah.” I roll my eyes and lick my lips. Talk about conflicted!

“He wants to talk to you. Should I tell him I wasn’t able to catch you? There’s a back stairway to your left that will take you straight out to the parking lot. Go right now and by the time Hurley figures it out you’ll be long gone.”

“You’d do that for me? How do you know you can trust me, that I’m not a killer?”

“Because you didn’t lie to me. And because Izzy says so and his word’s good enough for me. Besides, I consider myself to be a good judge of character and I can tell you’re not the killing type.”

I can’t help myself. I sandwich his face between my hands and plant a big kiss on his forehead. “Thanks, Arnie. I owe you one.”

As I dash toward the stairs, I hear him say, “Hot damn! Can’t wait to collect on that one!”

Chapter 8

Thirty seconds later I’m in the parking lot sliding into the front seat of my car. I know Hurley is going to be pissed but frankly I don’t much care. I’m not ready to talk to him yet and still haven’t thought up a reasonable, face-saving excuse for my scarf being below David’s window. And unless Steve Hurley is the densest brick in the building, it won’t take him long to put two and two together. In fact, I’m pretty sure he already has except he’s come up with five and doesn’t know it.

I’m not sure where to go. Once Hurley figures out I’m not at the office he’ll probably check the cottage, so going home is out of the question. I consider hiding out at Izzy’s house—it’s only two in the afternoon and Izzy won’t be home for several hours yet. That’s a good thing, because while I’m not sure I can count on Izzy to compromise himself by hiding me from the police just because I don’t feel like talking to them yet, I know Dom will do it. Dom hates cops, for reasons I’ve never been able to ferret out. Still, if I go to Izzy’s it won’t be hard for Hurley to find me there—it’s a little too close to home for comfort.

I want to talk to David, but I know he’ll be tied up at the hospital for hours. The lack of sleep is catching up to me, so I make a short-term decision on where to go by pulling into a Quik-E-Mart for a cup of the sludge they try to pass off as coffee. I park on the far side of the store, away from the street and next to the garbage bins, just in case Hurley is cruising the streets looking for my car. As I climb out and shut the door, I hear something rustling around inside one of the Dumpsters. For an insane moment I seriously consider walking over to look inside but then a vision of John Hurt with a crab-legged alien stuck to his face wises me up and I hurry into the store instead.

The girl behind the counter looks to be about fifteen years old though I know she has to be at least eighteen to work here and sell cigarettes. She is tall—damn near as tall as me—and built like a pole, straight up and down, not a curve anywhere, her pants threatening to slide off her boyish hips. She is dressed head to toe in black and has dyed her hair to match. The heavy eyeliner around her eyes gives her a sort of punk Cleopatra look, though I doubt Cleopatra ever had tiny hoops pierced through her lip and each nostril. There are multiple hoops in each ear, too, plus two in each of her eyebrows and one in the web between her thumb and fore-finger on each hand. Her belly button also has two hoops in it—one silver and one gold—and through the tight fit of her short black T-shirt I can see that she has a hoop through each nipple as well. Rounding out the piercings I can see is a barbell-shaped stud in her tongue that clicks on her teeth when she talks. I shudder as I think about the piercings that I can’t see and wonder if this is what my niece Erika will look like in a few years.

I pay for my sludge, the price of which is relayed to me in clicking grunts, and head back to my car. Again I hear the odd rustling sound coming from the Dumpster and again I decide to ignore it, figuring it’s probably a rat. But then I hear a tiny, plaintive cry that freezes me to the spot. A second later, I hear it again—a pitiful cry that tugs hard at my heart-strings.

I set my coffee on the car roof and against my better judgment, close in on the Dumpster, the smell of rotting food growing stronger with each step. The top of it is closed but there is a smaller door high up in the front that is hanging open several inches. Standing back as far as I can, I reach for it and pull. After waiting a few seconds to make sure nothing is going to leap out and get me, I cautiously poke my head inside.

About two feet below the hole, between an empty beer bottle and a large potato chip bag, two blue eyes gaze up at me, tiny but lively. At first I think it’s a baby, one of those hidden pregnancy dumps that teenagers seem so fond of these days. Then I comprehend the fur, whiskers, and pointy ears that go with the eyes. It’s a baby, all right, but not a human one. And not John Hurt’s alien either. It’s a kitten: longhaired, gray and white, barely as big as my hand.

It squalls and mewls, its eyes beseeching me. I reach in to scoop it out and its claws immediately dig into my sleeve and hand. I coddle and shush and murmur, stroking its fur and trying to gently pry its claws from my skin. It quiets finally, but those claws aren’t budging. I realize there will be no escape without blood being drawn, so I do the only logical thing left—I get in my car and drive one-handed to my mother’s house, cursing as I watch my forgotten coffee cup spew its contents all over my back window.

My pale coloring and Scandinavian features come from my mother, though her hair long ago turned from pale blond to pure white. She hasn’t seen more than five minutes of sunlight in the last decade for fear of developing melanoma and has had every mole that had the audacity to appear on her body promptly removed. Consequently, her skin is so white it’s almost translucent, a detail she uses to great advantage whenever pallor is a symptom of her disease du jour.

Despite her paranoia and a deep conviction that she must be harboring some dreaded illness, my mother is the picture of health—physical health anyway. She takes a handful of vitamins and herbs every day, eats balanced meals, and hasn’t an ounce of fat on her body anywhere—a trait I apparently did not inherit. My mother treats her body like a temple, albeit a temple she expects to crumble any minute. That’s not likely, however. No self- respecting germ or disease would dare to set up shop in my mother’s body. I fully expect her to live to be 130 or more.

Unfortunately, her wonderful physical condition is offset by her mental health, or lack thereof. In addition to her hypochondria, or perhaps as a result of it, she has a mild case of OCD—obsessive-compulsive disorder. While the disease can manifest itself in any number of quirky little habits or traits, in my mother it is limited to an obsession with germs. No germs are allowed. They are wiped, sprayed, disinfected, and otherwise obliterated from