“I’m okay.”
“I’ll walk you to the door.”
“Dad, you don’t have-”
“Come on.”
Kelly dragged her backpack, adopting a condemned-prisoner gait as we approached the house.
“Don’t worry,” I said. There was a For Sale sign with a phone number stuck to the inside back window of Darren Slocum’s pickup. “It’ll be fun, once you’ve ditched your dad.”
I was about to ring the bell when I heard a car pull in to the driveway. It was Ann in her Beemer. When she got out of the car, she grabbed a Walgreens bag.
“Hey!” she called, more to Kelly than me. “I just got some snacks for your sleepover.” Then she laid her eyes on me. “Hi, Glen.” Only two words, but they were laced with sympathy.
“Ann.”
The front door opened. It was Emily, her blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail just like Kelly’s. She must have spotted us through the window. She squealed at the sight of Kelly, who barely had time to mumble a farewell to me as she and her friend ran off.
“So much for the tearful goodbye,” I said to Ann.
She smiled, walking past me and taking me by the arm into the front hall.
“Thanks for taking Kelly tonight,” I said. “She’s very excited.”
“It’s no trouble.”
Ann Slocum was in her mid-thirties, petite, with short black hair. Stylish jeans, a blue satiny T and matching bracelets. An outfit that looked simple enough but probably set her back more than what a new Makita rotary hammer, with variable speed and all the accessories, would have cost me. She had nice muscle tone in the arms, a flat stomach beneath her small breasts. She looked like someone who worked out, but I recalled Sheila saying once that Ann had dropped her gym membership. I supposed one could do that sort of thing from home. Ann gave off something, in the way she carried herself, the way she tilted her head when she looked at you, the way you knew she knew you were looking at her when she walked away, that was like a scent. She was the kind of woman who, if you didn’t keep your head about you, you might find yourself wanting to do something stupid with.
I wasn’t stupid.
Darren Slocum entered from the dining room. Trim, about a head taller than Ann and about the same age, but with prematurely gray hair. His high cheekbones and deep-set eyes gave him an intimidating look, which probably came in handy when he pulled people over for exceeding the Milford speed limits. He thrust out a hand. His shake was strong, just this side of painful, establishing dominance. But building houses gave you a pretty good grip, too, and I was ready for him, putting my palm firmly into his and giving as good as I got, the son of a bitch.
“Hey,” he said. “How’s it going.”
“Jesus, Darren, dumb question,” Ann said, wincing and looking apologetically at me.
Her husband shot her a look. “Excuse me. It’s just something you say.”
I gave my head a “Don’t worry about it” shake. But Ann wasn’t ready to let it go. “You should think before you talk,” she said.
Oh what fun. I’d arrived in the middle of a spat. Trying to smooth things over, I said, “This is really good for Kelly. She’s had no one to hang out with but me for two weeks, and I haven’t exactly been a barrel of laughs.”
Ann said, “Emily’s been at us and at us to have a sleepover and she finally wore us down. Maybe it’ll be good for everyone.”
The girls could be heard in the kitchen, giggling and fussing about. I heard Kelly shout, “Pizza, yes!” Darren, distracted, looked off in the direction of the noise.
“We’ll take good care of her,” Ann said, then, to her husband, “won’t we, Darren?”
He snapped his head around. “Hmm?”
“I said we’ll take good care of her.”
“Yeah, of course,” he said. “Sure.”
I said, “I see you’re selling your truck.”
Darren brightened. “You interested?”
“I’m not really in the market right-”
“I can give you a hell of a deal on it. It’s got the three-ten horsepower engine and the eight-foot bed, perfect for a guy like you. Make me an offer.”
I shook my head. I didn’t need a new truck. I wasn’t even going to get anything for Sheila’s totaled Subaru. Because the accident was her fault, the insurance company wasn’t going to cover it. “Sorry,” I said. “What time should I pick Kelly up?”
Ann and Darren exchanged glances. Ann, her hand on the door, said, “Why don’t we have her call you? You know how silly they can get. If they don’t get to sleep in good time, they won’t exactly be up at the crack of dawn, will they?”
When I pulled the truck in to my driveway, Joan Mueller was looking out her front window from next door. A moment later, she came outside, stood on the front step. A boy about four years old peered out from behind her leg. Not hers. Joan and Ely had had no children. This little guy would be one of her charges.
“Hey, Glen,” she called as I stepped out of the cab.
“Joan,” I said, planning to head straight into the house.
“How are things?” she asked.
“Managing,” I said. It would have been polite to ask how things were with her, but I didn’t want to get into a conversation.
“Do you have a second?” she asked.
You can’t always get what you want. I walked across the lawn, glanced down at the boy and smiled.
“You know Mr. Garber, don’t you, Carlson? He’s a nice man.” The boy hid another moment behind her leg, then ran back into the house. “He’s my last pickup,” Joan explained to me. “Expecting his dad along any minute. Everyone else has been by. Just Carlson’s dad and that’s it, then I’ll have my life back for the weekend!” A nervous laugh. “Most people, they seem to pick up their kids early on a Friday, they get off ahead of schedule, but not Mr. Bain-Carlson’s dad-he works right to the end of the day, Friday or not, you know?”
Joan had a way of rambling on nervously. All the more reason why I had hoped to avoid a chat.
“You’re looking well,” I said, and it was half true. Joan Mueller was a good-looking woman. Early thirties, brown hair pulled back into a ponytail. Her jeans and T-shirt fit her like a second skin, and she filled them well. If anything, she was a little too skinny. Since her husband’s death, and starting an off-the-books child-care operation in her home, she’d lost probably twenty pounds. Nervous energy, anxiety, not to mention chasing after four or five children.
She blushed, tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “Well, you know, I’m on the move all the time, right? You think you’ve got them all settled down in front of the tube or doing some crafts and then one wanders off and you get that one and then another one’s on the go-I swear it’s like kittens in a basket, you know?”
I was only a couple of feet away from her and was pretty sure I could smell liquor on her breath.
“Was there something I can help you with?”
“I-well, um-I’ve got a tap in the kitchen that won’t stop dripping. You know, maybe sometime, if you had a second, but I know you’re busy and all-”
“Maybe on the weekend,” I said. “When I have a minute.” Over the years, especially during other periods when work was tight, I’d done small jobs, unrelated to the company, for our neighbors. I’d finished off the Muellers’ basement on my own a few years back over a month, working every Saturday and Sunday.
“Oh sure, I understand, I don’t want to cut in on your free time, Glen, I totally understand that.”
“Okay, then,” I said, smiled, and turned to leave.
“So how’s Kelly getting along? I haven’t had her here, after school, since, you know.” I had the feeling Joan Mueller did not want me to go.
“I’ve been picking her up every day after school,” I said. “And she’s at a sleepover with a friend tonight.”
“Oh,” Joan said. “So you’re on your own tonight, then.”
I nodded but said nothing. I didn’t know whether Joan was sending out a signal or not. It didn’t seem possible. Her husband had been dead for some time, but I’d lost Sheila only sixteen days ago.
