“A telemarketer?”
“Yeah.”
“Why do you think it was a telemarketer?”
“Well, the first thing Mrs. Slocum said was, ‘Why are you calling?’ And something about her cell phone being off.”
This wasn’t making any sense. Why would Ann Slocum care if Kelly overheard her on the phone with a telemarketer?
“What else did she say?”
“She said something about paying for something, and getting something back, or something like that. She was trying to get a good deal.”
“I’m not getting this,” I said. “She was trying to make a deal with a telemarketer?”
“And then she said don’t be stupid because you’ll get bullets in your brain.”
I massaged my forehead, baffled, although I could imagine myself telling a telemarketer I’d like to shoot him in the head.
“Did she say anything about Mr. Slocum?” I asked. After all, Ann had made Kelly promise not to mention the call to her husband. Maybe that meant something. Although none of this made sense. Kelly shook her head no.
“Anything else?”
“Not really. Am I in trouble?”
I stooped and kissed her. “No. Absolutely not.”
“Mrs. Slocum isn’t going to come here and get mad at me again, is she?”
“Not a chance. I’ll leave your door open, so if you have a bad dream or something, I’ll hear you, or you can come and see me. But I’m going downstairs right now. Okay?”
She said okay, tucked Hoppy in, and turned off her light.
Slumped wearily at my desk, I tried to reason it out.
The first part of the conversation, which sounded like Ann checking up on someone who’d been injured, seemed innocuous enough. But the second call was more puzzling. If it was just a nuisance call, maybe Ann was pissed that she’d had to cut off the first caller to deal with it. I could understand that. Maybe that was why she made some kind of threat about shooting the person.
People threatened things all the time they didn’t really mean. How often had I done it? In my line of work, pretty much every day. I wanted to kill our suppliers who didn’t deliver on time. I wanted to kill the guys at the lumberyard who sent us warped boards. The other day I’d told Ken Wang he was a dead man after he’d driven a nail through a water line that was just behind the drywall.
Just because Ann Slocum said she wanted to put a bullet in someone’s brain didn’t mean she had any intention of doing it. But she might not have been happy to find out a small child was listening to her lose her cool. And she wouldn’t want her daughter to know she’d spoken to someone that way on the phone.
But had she really said anything that she’d care if her husband found out about?
All that aside, my one concern was Kelly. She didn’t deserve to have been frightened that way. I could accept that Ann would be upset finding Kelly hiding in her closet, but getting that angry with her, threatening her with the loss of Emily as a friend, then ordering her to stay in the room and taking the cordless phone with her so Kelly couldn’t make a call-what the fuck was that?
I picked up the phone again, started to dial.
Hung up.
And what the hell was all that at the door when I came to get Kelly? Clearly, Ann didn’t know my daughter had a phone on her. Suppose Kelly hadn’t called me to come get her? What, exactly, would Ann have done next?
I thought about what I would say to Ann when I got her on the phone.
Don’t you ever pull that kind of shit with my daughter again.
Something like that.
If I called.
Even though my opinion of Sheila’s judgment had taken a nosedive in recent weeks, I couldn’t help but wonder how she’d handle this situation. After all, she and Ann were friends. Sheila always seemed to know, far better than I, how to handle a prickly situation, how to defuse a social time bomb. She was best at it with me. Once, after a guy in an Escalade cut me off on the Merritt Parkway, I’d sped after him, hoping to catch up and pull alongside so I could flip him the bird.
“Look in your rearview mirror,” Sheila said softly as I leaned on the accelerator.
“He’s in front of me, not behind me,” I said.
“Look in your rearview mirror,” she said again.
I thought, Shit, a cop’s tailing me. But when I looked in the mirror, what I saw was Kelly in her booster seat.
“If giving this guy the finger trumps your daughter’s safety, then by all means,” Sheila said.
My foot came off the gas.
Quite a wise approach from a woman who drove up the wrong ramp and killed herself and two others. The memories of that night did not square with those I had of Sheila as a calm, reasonable person. I thought I knew what her prevailing view of my current predicament would be.
Suppose I did get Ann Slocum on the phone and gave her a piece of my mind? I might get some satisfaction out of it. But what would the fallout be for Kelly? Would Emily’s mom turn her daughter against Kelly? Would it send Emily into the enemy camp at school, with the kids who called Kelly “Boozer the Loser”?
I emptied my glass and debated whether to go back upstairs for a refill. As I sat there, feeling the warmth spread through my body, the phone rang.
I grabbed the receiver. “Hello?”
“Glen? It’s Belinda.”
“Oh, hey, Belinda.” I glanced at the clock. Nearly ten.
“I know it’s late,” she said.
“That’s okay.”
“I was thinking I should give you a call. I don’t think I’ve even seen you since the funeral. I was feeling bad I hadn’t been in touch, but I wanted to give you your space, you know?”
“Sure.”
“How’s Kelly doing? Is she back at school?”
“She could be better. But she’ll get through this. We’ll get through this.”
“I know, I know, she’s such a terrific girl. I just… I just keep thinking about Sheila. I mean, I know she was only my friend, that your loss is so much greater, but it hurts, it just hurts so much.”
She sounded as though she might start to cry. I didn’t need this right now.
“I wish I could have seen her one last time,” she continued. What did she mean by that? That she wished she could have spent time with Sheila one more time before she died? “I guess, what with the car catching on fire…”
Oh. Belinda was referring to the closed casket. “They got the fire out before it took over the inside of the car. She wasn’t… touched.” I pushed away memories of the shattered glass sparkling in her hair, the blood…
“Right,” Belinda said. “I think I’d heard that, although I’d wondered, whether Sheila… you just don’t like to let your mind go there, thinking about how badly… I really don’t know how to say this.”
Why did she have to know whether Sheila was burned beyond recognition? Why on earth would she think I’d want to talk about this? This was how you comfort a man who’s just lost his wife? Ask whether there was anything left of her?
“I felt a closed casket was best. For Kelly.”
“Of course, of course, I can understand that.”
“It’s kind of late, Belinda, and-”
“This is very difficult, Glen, but Sheila’s purse… was it recovered?”
“Her purse? Yes, it was. I got it from the police.” They’d searched the bag, looking for evidence, receipts. Wondering where she’d bought the bottle of vodka they’d found, empty, in the car. They didn’t find anything.
“The thing is-this is so awkward, Glen-but the thing is, I’d given Sheila an envelope, and I was wondering-this
