Tom Piccirilli - The Last Kind Words

Lots of prints of famous artwork on the walls. Looked like one or both of the sisters were interested in the likes of Manet, Jackson Pollock, Dali. I could check the dressers and become a fucking panty sniffer, see which one’s underwear smelled fresher, but I already felt too ashamed. When even a thief feels embarrassed, you know something is way out of line.

I started with the room on the left. There were no photos. I didn’t know what else I was looking for. Some connection between Rebecca and Collie? Between her and some boyfriend? Gilmore figured it was always the boyfriend.

The cops would’ve been through the place five years ago. They would’ve searched the drawers and found a diary or anything else that might’ve given them a lead. I stuck to the most likely places for a hidden cache. Most teens had one. A secret stash of cigarettes, joints, porn, boosted cash, self-taken nudie shots, or anything else they wanted to hide from their parents.

I checked the floor and ceiling of the closet. The air vent. The molding in the corners of the room. I pulled out drawers in case any of them had false bottoms or had been shortened to leave room behind them. I scored when I spotted a loose faceplate on one of the wall sockets.

The wiring had been disconnected. There was a cubbyhole about five inches deep. Inside was a dime bag of marijuana, half a bottle of what looked like Oxycontin, and several other bottles of Valium, Xanax, and Zoloft. The shit was serious. There were also stolen sheets of empty scrips. I pocketed a couple of them. You never knew.

The pot was skunkweed but it was fresh. This was the seventeen-year-old’s room. She liked to mellow out and did what she had to do to follow her buzz and blunt her anxieties. After what she’d been through, I didn’t blame her. But she was overdoing the self-medication. Too many antidepressants could have opposite the intended effect.

I crossed the hall to Becky’s room, hating myself. I felt like a total fraud. Collie’s name was stuck in my teeth. I’d been in the house almost ten minutes. That was a lot of time to be inside. I scouted the likely hot spots, tried the outlets first just to see if the seventeen-year-old had picked up the trick from Becky. There was nothing anywhere.

“Who the fuck are you?”

I spun and the teenage girl was there in the doorway.

If someone comes in the door, you dive out the window. That was one of the basic tenets of being a thief.

Except that she had her father’s.45 trained on me.

They hadn’t been as careless as I’d thought. She was just walking her sister to the corner stop, waiting with her until the bus arrived. That’s why the door had been left open.

“Oh, hey there,” I said, propping a high-wattage smile in place. “I rang the bell. And knocked, but no one answered. The door was open. I’m Freddy of Freddy’s Fix-It. Seems like you’ve got some faulty wiring that your father wants me to check out.”

“The front door was locked. The back door was open.”

“Right,” I said. “See, I was calling out and I decided to come around the side of the house over there and-”

“Where’s your toolbox?”

“Oh, that’s in the truck.”

“So where’s your truck?”

“We didn’t have a flangella voltometer with us. Very important during electrical work, otherwise you can fry the frammistat. My partner left to go get-”

“Shove it. Who are you?”

“Everybody knows Freddy.”

She was pretty, or had been once. Now her face was thin and drawn, with dark steaming eyes and heavy frown lines across her brow and around her mouth. In ten or twenty years they’d be deep as knife tracks. At the top of her arm, the hint of a tattoo edged out from beneath her black T-shirt.eddрu can fry She was underage too. I wondered who this prick was that kept inking all these little girls.

She reminded me more than a little of Dale. The gun never wavered. It was a heavy piece of hardware. She held it with a two-handed grip, and the muscles in her forearms were tense and sharply defined.

I winced and waited for the screaming. I thought, Now Gilmore is really going to tune up my ass in a holding cell.

“I know you,” she said.

“Everyone knows Freddy of Freddy’s Fix-”

“No, I know you, fucker!”

I didn’t like the way she said it. There was rage there as well as anguish and an undercurrent of vengeance. I never wanted to be around someone who sounded like that, much less someone pointing a large-caliber weapon at my heart. My back began to crawl with cold sweat. My breathing hitched.

“You’re one of them,” she continued. “One of those people. That family. Named after dogs.”

Christ. I wasn’t going to be able to cover the ground between us before she pulled the trigger. The window was closed and locked and there was a screen. I wasn’t going to be able to duck through it and run away. I could only hold my ground and pray I didn’t piss myself. I hoped she called the cops instead of taking her hate out on the wrong Rand.

“Which one are you?” she asked. “Tell me.”

“Terrier,” I admitted.

“You look like your brother.”

“Right, but I’m not him.”

“But you’re in my house.”

She had me there. “I found the piece in your father’s nightstand drawer. I removed the clip.”

“No, you didn’t. I checked. I always check. My dad’s taught me all about guns since I was twelve. I’m a good shot. Not that I’d have to be at this range.”

“Shit. Look, I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

“You’re not going to get the chance.”

“Just let me explain.”

“You people are thieves and liars and murderers. What makes you think I’m going to listen to you even one more second?”

It was a good question. If I came home and found the brother of the man who’d murdered my sister standing in the middle of her bedroom, I would’ve made my play by now, whatever it was.

But along with the low-slung burning fury and the distress and the dull edginess that comes when someone hooked on pills needs to pop another one, she was intrigued and wanted to know what the hell I was doing here.

I had to engage her. I said, “Your rooms are the same. Yours and Becky’s. Why?”

“So you’ve already been in mine.”

“Yes.”

“Did you steal anything?”

“No.”

“Not enough time?”

“There was plenty of time. But I’m not a thief anymore.”

“Now you just break in to houses but don’tlaiр/p›

“Technically I didn’t break in. I just-”

“Shut up!”

“Your rooms are the same, except you’ve got a hiding place for your goodies. You’re hooked on antianxiety meds.”

Her eyes widened and her mouth opened as if I’d just slapped her. It was an ugly expression on a cute face. Then she grinned without humor. That was worse. She studied me and was offended by what she saw. “Care to guess why, you prick?”

I nodded. “I already know why. You should just call the cops. Ask for Detective Gilmore. Don’t worry, he’ll definitely give me a good beating. He already has this week. He’ll probably let you watch. Or help.”

She was still calm, assured, centered, but the hate inside her was looking to get out, and it flickered in her eyes. They were at least a little crazy. I’d done that to her. My family had done that to her.

“Last chance to tell me why you’re here. After this, I think I’m going to shoot you. I’m not sure where. Maybe in the knee. Maybe the balls. Maybe the head. I haven’t decided. Did you think about dying when you were going through our things?”

“No.”

“You should’ve. You must know something about last chances. Your brother’s used all of his up.”