Tuesday, July 4
Having to wait out the holiday drove Aubrey crazy. But actually it was something of a blessing. It gave her a long, uninterrupted day to start writing her series. I spent the day at home, weeding and napping, and after the sun went down, listening to the dogs in the neighborhood bark every time some damn kid lit a cherry bomb.
Wednesday, July 5
After a long day of furious writing and frustrating phone calls, Aubrey finally heard from the prison. “Sorry,” the woman in the warden’s office said. “Sissy James does not wish to see you at this time.”
Aubrey went immediately to Tinker, who immediately took her upstairs to see Bob Averill. An enormous decision had to be made. Should the paper go ahead with a full-blown series as planned? Without Sissy’s admission that she didn’t kill Buddy Wing? Or would it be wise to scale things down? Run a story here and there? Over the months pile fact upon fact like a many layered Dobosh torte, until the police were forced to reopen the case?
During their meeting, Bob excused himself on the pretense of having to use the restroom and called me in the morgue. “This is very important, Maddy. When you went with Aubrey to Mingo Junction-you personally heard Sissy’s cousin say that she was there all weekend?”
“I was standing right next to Aubrey,” I said.
“You’re absolutely sure? We could look awfully foolish if our journalistic ducks-”
“They’re in a row, Bob.”
“So, you’re sure?”
“Good gravy, Bob.”
So the decision was made. We’d still go with the full-blown series, starting on the following Wednesday. That would give Aubrey one week. If she got through to Sissy James, good. If she couldn’t, then we’d go with what we had.
Thursday, July 6
I put in an extra hour at my desk doing nothing then drove home. I covered a frozen chicken patty with bottled spaghetti sauce and Parmesan cheese and baked it in the oven for fifteen minutes. I poured a warm can of Squirt over a tumbler of ice cubes. I had my dinner on the back porch, watching what I hoped were rain clouds rolling in from the west. My lawn and flower beds desperately needed a soaking.
I felt so alone sitting there. And angry at myself because I did.
I’d lived by myself since 1963, when Lawrence and I divorced. The first few years were terrible but I got so used to being alone that little by little I convinced myself I liked it that way. Now Aubrey McGinty had sucked me into her life. She’d filled my evenings and my weekends. She’d filled my head, and I suppose even my heart, with a sense of adventure, a feeling of family.
I took my tray into the kitchen and checked the cupboard to see how many tea bags I had left. I had enough for six months. I drove to Ike’s for more.
“Morgue Mama,” he sang out.
“One for here, Ike, and a couple boxes for the road.”
I was still there at nine when the rain hit. When Aubrey’s little white Escort pulled to the curb.
Aubrey bought a bottle of cranberry juice and a bag of barbecue potato chips. She joined me at my table by the window, pushing aside my boxes of tea bags. “Anything fit to print today?” I asked.
“That’s why I stopped when I saw your car. You’ll never guess whose windows were smashed out.”
“Oh my-not again.”
“Not mine-Tish Kiddle’s.” She dug a printout of her story from her purse. She kept up a running commentary while I read. “Can you believe she drives a Lexus? You see where she lives? Saffron Hills? Do you know how pricey those condos are? Good God, how much money does that fluff-cake make?”
Tish Kiddle’s paycheck did not interest me. Her smashed car windows did. “You think this means she’s onto something?”
Aubrey slid down in her chair and glumly folded her arms. “At the very least somebody’s afraid she is.” She flipped back her hair and stared me. “You think I’m pretty enough for TV news?”
I’d come to Ike’s to talk to Ike. To relax in his slow, easy voice. Now Aubrey was buzzing all over me, like a bee at a picnic. I was simply not in the mood for her ego, or her jealousy, or her youth. When Aubrey headed for the restroom, I headed for my car.
It was still raining-not as hard as before but enough to keep my windshield wipers clacking. The lights along the downtown’s empty streets were dim, mutated blurs. I turned onto West Tuckman. It wasn’t that late but the rain had chased everybody home to the suburbs.
Just west of the monstrous old YMCA building, a pair of headlights filled my rear-view mirror, bright, then dim, then bright again. I pushed on the gas pedal. I made sure my doors were locked. The headlights got closer. Flashed again. I sped up more.
I scolded myself for panicking. I lifted my chin and squinted at the mirror. To see what kind of car it was. To see what kind of danger I was in. But it was too dark, and it was raining too hard, and the headlights were too close and too bright.
I was driving through the 3rd District now, Lionel Percy’s domain. But if that was a police car following me, wouldn’t its blue roof lights be blasting? Wouldn’t its siren be squealing? I decided not necessarily. I reached Potter’s Hill, where the city’s old ceramic industry once flourished. Now it was a lifeless strip of used car lots and empty storefronts with tattered For Sale or Lease signs in the windows.
I ran the red light at Halprin Street. So did the car behind me.
You can imagine what was going on inside my head. Car windows being smashed. Men jumping out from bushes slapping and scratching. Lionel Percy popping up like a jack-in-the-box clown. Preachers tumbling backward into pots of fake palms. The street was slick with standing water. I drove faster anyway. In a few minutes I would be in Meri. There would be people there, brighter street lights and glowing neon.
I started chastising myself, in that special shrill whisper we save for our own ears: “It’s your own damn fault. You didn’t have to get involved with that crazy girl. You could have stayed right in your safe little Morgue Mama world making people miserable. But you had to tag along like the sidekick on some old Saturday morning western. And now here you are about to be beaten, killed or worse. You old fool. You’re as full of yourself as she is.”
I also started thinking about ways to defend myself-kicking, biting, screaming, calmly talking myself out of trouble, running like a rabbit-but I quickly realized that my age was my only defense. “Who would hurt a sixty- seven-year-old woman?” I whispered. “Then again, who would murder a seventy-five-year-old preacher?”
The traffic light at Teeple was yellow when I slipped under it. It was a dark neighborhood crowded with tall frame houses, drooping trees and uneven slate sidewalks. There were a few more cars on the street. Unfortunately not enough to stop the demon behind me from riding my bumper.
Two blocks from Meri the car behind me started beeping. It was a weak, oinking beep, no more threatening than the timer on my microwave. “Good gravy,” I growled. I pulled over and watched Aubrey trot toward me through the rain. I rolled down my window and claimed my two boxes of Darjeeling tea.
Friday, July 7
On Friday I went into work at seven. In case I was needed. In case something surprising happened I didn’t want to miss. Aubrey was already at her desk, a Walkman snapped over her ears filling her ears with God knows what kind of noise while she typed like a maniac.
Just after eleven, I heard her howl. She danced toward me like a flamenco dancer, chopping her feet and
