She shook her head. “I’d never met her. I’m with the Milford PD.” She tipped her head in the direction of the men I’d just noticed. “I don’t work directly with Darren, but we’re always running into each other. I’m a detective.”
“Pleased to meet you,” I said, then added, “It always seems dumb to say ‘pleased’ or ‘nice’ to meet you at things like this.”
Rona Wedmore nodded understandingly. “Sure.” She looked at me curiously. “What did you say your name was again?”
“Garber. Glen Garber.”
“Your daughter, she was staying over with the Slocums that night.”
I wondered how she knew this, and whether she was somehow involved in the investigation of the accident.
“Well, Kelly was going to stay over, but she came home early.” When Rona Wedmore narrowed her eyes, I added lamely, “She wasn’t feeling well.”
“She’s okay now?”
“Yes, well, she’s upset, too. Emily’s her friend.”
“Was that your daughter, was that Kelly that was just…”
“Yes.”
“Your girl, she seemed to be taking her friend’s mother’s death pretty hard,” the detective said.
“She lost her own mother-my wife, Sheila-a few weeks ago.”
“I’m very sorry for your loss. Your wife, she…” Wedmore seemed to be processing information, trying to retrieve data buried in her head.
“An accident.”
“Yes. Yes, I know the one.”
“It wasn’t in Milford.”
She nodded. “But I’m aware of it.”
“First Sheila, then Ann,” I said. “I think it’s hardest on the girls. Speaking of which, I’m going to find mine now, if you’ll excuse me.”
Wedmore smiled as I moved away. Carrying my coffee, I worked my way through the crowd and over to the door. I thought maybe I’d find the two girls out in the hall, but they weren’t there. The funeral home had several other reception rooms, and as far as I could tell the only one in use was the one for the Slocums.
I moved down the hall, poking my head into one room, then the next. I heard someone scurrying behind me, and saw Emily. She was alone.
“Emily!” I called softly.
She whirled around. “Hi, Mr. Garber.”
“Where’s Kelly? Isn’t she with you?”
The girl shook her head and pointed to a closed door. “She’s in there.” And then she darted off.
The door was marked KITCHEN and instead of a knob had a brass plate. I pushed and the door gave way on its swing hinges. It was bigger than a standard kitchen, no doubt used to prepare foods for events that demanded more than just coffee.
“Kelly?” I called.
I stepped into the room and saw Kelly sitting on one of the counters, her legs dangling over the side. Standing before her was Darren Slocum. He would have had to pick Kelly up for her to be sitting there, almost eye to eye with him.
“Glen,” he said.
“Daddy,” Kelly said, her eyes wide.
“What the hell are you doing?” I asked, closing the distance between Slocum and me.
“We were just talking,” he said. “I was just asking Kelly here a couple of questions about-”
My fist caught him squarely on the chin. Kelly screamed as Slocum stumbled back into a shelving unit loaded with oversized pots. Two of them went crashing to the floor. Orchestra cymbals would have made less noise.
It wasn’t long before the screams and the pots brought us an audience. One of the funeral home directors, a woman I didn’t know, and a couple of big guys I suspected were cops burst through the door. They saw Slocum rubbing his chin, feeling the trickle of blood that was coming down from the corner of his mouth. And then they saw me, my hand still shaped into a fist.
The cops started to move on me.
“No, no!” Slocum said, holding up his hand. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”
I pointed a finger at him and said, “Don’t you ever, ever talk to my daughter again. Go near her again and I’ll take a fucking two-by-four to your goddamn head.”
I scooped Kelly up in my arms and headed for the parking lot.
I could just imagine what Sheila would have said. “Punching out a guy at his own wife’s visitation. Smooth.”
TWENTY-TWO
“What was he asking you?” I asked Kelly as we drove home.
“Why did you hit Emily’s dad?” she whimpered. “Why did you do that?”
“I asked you a question. What was he talking to you about?”
“He wanted to know about the phone call.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I said I wasn’t supposed to talk about it anymore.”
“And then what did he say?”
“He said he wanted me to think really hard about everything I’d heard and then you came in and then you hit him and now everyone’s going to hate me. I can’t believe you did that!”
I was gripping the wheel so hard my knuckles were white. “You know you were supposed to stay with me.”
Tears running down her face, Kelly said, “You let me go with Emily’s aunt.”
“I know, I know, but I told you I didn’t want you to talk to Mr. Slocum. Didn’t I tell you that?”
“But he came into the kitchen and he told Emily to go and I didn’t know what I was supposed to do!”
I realized, at that moment, how astonishingly unreasonable I was being. She was eight years old, for God’s sake. What did I expect her to do? Tell Darren Slocum to piss off and walk out? I had no business being furious with her. I could be furious with him, and I could certainly be furious with myself for letting her out of my sight. But I had no reason to take it out on Kelly.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m not mad at you. I’m not-”
“I hate you. I just hate you.”
“Kelly, please.”
“Don’t talk to me,” she said, and turned her back to me.
We didn’t say anything else to each other the whole way home. When we got there, she ran straight to her room and slammed the door.
I went into the kitchen and put a tumbler and the bottle of scotch on the table. I poured myself a drink. By the time I reached for the phone some twenty minutes later, I’d refilled my glass twice. I punched in a number.
The phone picked up after two rings. “Hello? Glen?”
Belinda had been looking at the caller ID. “Yes.”
“My God, Glen, what happened? Everyone’s talking about it. You hit Darren? Is that what you did? With his wife dead in the next room? Did you really do that? You couldn’t possibly have done that.”
“What the hell did you tell them, Belinda?”
“What?”
“The lawyers.”
