Or, if I needed a bit of help, I’d bring in my good friend Doug. And I’d pay him out of the cash I got.
While I’d had to tap into it during lean times, I’d managed to sock most of it away. I didn’t want a record of the money, so I didn’t bank it. I kept it at home, concealed behind a removable strip of wood paneling in my downstairs office. Sheila and I were the only ones who knew the cash-just under seventeen thousand dollars-was hidden there.
Although Doug didn’t know how much I’d managed to save, or where I kept it, he knew I’d made money that was never reported. So had he, for that matter. But when he made his threat, he knew I had more at stake. I owned the company.
I hadn’t ripped off the government for millions. I wasn’t Enron or Wall Street. But I’d hung on to a few thousand the IRS would have been quite happy to pocket for themselves. If they found out, and could prove I owed them money, I’d find a way, over time, to pay them back.
But not before they’d turned my life inside out. They’d audit me, and when they were done doing that, they’d audit Garber Contracting. I knew those books were clean as a whistle, but it’d probably cost me several grand in accountants’ fees to prove it.
I knew what my father would say, if he were alive today. He’d sing me a few of the old standards. “You reap what you sow,” he’d have said. “If you’d kept your nose clean, you wouldn’t be in this mess.”
And he’d be right.
Later on Saturday, I grabbed my tools and rang Joan Mueller’s doorbell. She looked delighted to see me. She was in a pair of jean shorts and a man’s white dress shirt, the tails knotted at the front.
“I almost forgot,” I said. “About the tap.”
“Come in, come in. Don’t worry about your shoes, keep them on, it’s okay, God knows if I was worried about the carpets I wouldn’t be taking in half a dozen kids every day, would I?” She laughed.
“No, I guess not,” I said. I’d been in this house before and knew my way to the kitchen. There was half a bottle of Pinot Grigio on the kitchen table, and a nearly empty wineglass not far from it. Between the two, an issue of Cosmopolitan.
“Can I get you a beer?” Joan asked.
“I’m fine.”
“Are you sure?” She opened the fridge. “I’ve got some Bud, a couple of Coors, and a Sam Adams. I seem to remember Sheila saying you liked Sam Adams.”
“Thanks, but I’m okay.”
She looked disappointed as she closed the fridge. “I didn’t think there was a man alive who didn’t like a cold beer.”
“It’s this one?” I asked, setting my toolbox on the counter next to the sink.
“Yup,” she said.
The tap wasn’t dripping. “It looks fine.” I turned the cold on, then off, then did the same with the hot.
“It’s kind of intermittent,” Joan said. “It’ll do it and then it won’t. It won’t do it all day, then I’ll be in bed and I can hear it going drip, drip, drip, just driving me mad till I come down here and turn the taps off harder.”
I’d been staring at the end of the faucet for nearly a minute and not a single drop had come out of it. “It looks okay, Joan. If it starts up again, give me a shout.”
“Well, I’m really sorry to have put you to any trouble. I feel like a total idiot. Why don’t you sit down for a second, anyway.”
I took a seat across from her at the kitchen table.
“So, Joan, tell me again about this conversation you had with Sheila, about Mr. Bain.”
She waved a hand dismissively at me. “It’s no big deal.”
“But you told her about him. About his son saying he beat up on his wife.”
“Well, little Carlson didn’t say that exactly, but it was certainly my take on the matter.”
“And you talked to Sheila about whether you should call the police?”
Joan nodded. “I wasn’t going to do it, and I wondered, maybe she did, but you know, she never mentioned anything.” She smiled sympathetically at me. “I guess, in the bigger scheme of things, it doesn’t really matter now, whether she did or not.”
I thought about that. “I suppose. Except for the fact that this jerk may still be beating up on his wife. And wondering whether you might have called the cops about him. Maybe what you should do is, tell him you’re cutting back, you’ve got too many kids, and give him two weeks’ notice to find someplace else to put his kid.”
“I don’t know about that,” she said. “I mean, he’s going to know I’m singling him out. And what’s to say, even if I don’t look after his kid anymore, that he won’t come back here to get even if he thinks I’ve ratted him out?” She filled her wineglass. “But I’m only going to have to do this for a little while longer anyway. Once the settlement comes in… did I tell you about that?”
“Yes, you did.”
“Half a mil is what they tell me.” She downed a third of the glass in one swig. “I’ll be fixed pretty good. I guess I’d still work-five hundred grand won’t last forever-but I’d stop babysitting. It’s too hard, too stressful. House is always a mess.” She paused. “I like to keep a neat house. And I’d still look after Kelly, after she gets home from school. I’ll always be happy to do that for you. She’s a wonderful child. Have I told you that? She’s just wonderful. It must be terrible for her, not having a mother.”
She reached out and patted my hand appreciatively, letting it linger for just a second.
“Sheila was so lucky to have you,” she said.
“I should be going,” I said.
“You sure about that beer? It’s no fun to drink alone, although if you have no choice…” She laughed.
“I’m positive.” I stood, grabbed my toolbox, and found my way out.
I lay awake most of Saturday night, wondering whether Darren Slocum would show up the following day, insisting again that he talk to Kelly. I hoped I’d given him enough that he wouldn’t feel the need. I kept wondering about the significance of Ann’s phone call, the one Kelly’d overheard. I wondered whom she might have been talking to, and why she didn’t want her husband to know. And why he was so determined to find out.
When I wasn’t worrying about Darren, I was thinking about Doug, and whether I should throw a few hundred bucks his way. Not because I actually believed he’d bring the wrath of the IRS down on me. I was convinced it wasn’t a serious threat on his part. Despite some of our differences, we’d been friends a long time. I was debating whether to give him some money because he needed it. But I also knew if I started giving him extra money, it would never end. I didn’t have enough, not even taking into account what I had hidden behind the paneling, to solve Doug and Betsy’s financial crisis.
I tossed and turned and thought about that house of mine that had burned down. I thought about whether the insurance company would cover my losses. I worried about whether the economy was going to pick up, whether there’d be any work for Garber Contracting five months from now.
I thought about the kids who called Kelly “Boozer the Loser.”
I thought about the man Joan Mueller was worried about, and the unwelcome interest she seemed to be taking in me. Sheila had told me one time, jokingly, that I better watch out for her. This was even before Ely died on the oil rig. Sheila’d said, “I know that look she gives you. It’s the same one I gave you. Of course,” she’d smiled, “that was a long time ago.”
I thought, briefly, about Belinda Morton, and her strange question about whether there’d been an envelope in Sheila’s purse.
But mostly, I thought about Sheila.
“Why?” I said, staring up at the ceiling, unable to sleep. “Why did you do it?”
Still so angry with her.
And needing her so desperately.
When Kelly came through the door just after six on Sunday, I was expecting her to be followed in by Marcus and Fiona. But it turned out to be just Marcus.
“Where’s your grandmother?” I asked Kelly.
“Marcus brought me by himself,” she said. Kelly never referred to Fiona’s second husband as “Grandpa” or “my grandfather.” Fiona wouldn’t allow it. “So we could have some ‘just us’ time.”
Marcus smiled sheepishly. “Whenever it’s the three of us, it’s all girl stuff. So I asked Fiona to let me bring her back on my own.”
