Linwood Barclay - The Accident

Chauffeuring Kelly back and forth to Emily’s house had usually been a duty that fell to Sheila, so I didn’t instantly know which place was the Slocums’.

“That one,” Kelly said, pointing.

Okay, I knew this house. I’d dropped Kelly here before. A one-story, built mid-sixties, would be my guess. It could have been a nice place if it got some attention. Some of the eaves were sagging, the shingles looked to be nearing the end of their lifespan, and a few of the bricks near the top of the chimney were crumbling from moisture getting into them. The Slocums weren’t alone in putting off household repairs. These days, with money tight, people were letting things go until they couldn’t be ignored any longer, and sometimes even then they weren’t dealing with them. A leaky roof could be fixed with a pail a lot cheaper than new shingles.

Ann Slocum’s husband, Darren, was living on a cop’s salary, which wasn’t huge, and probably even less than it used to be since the town started clamping down on overtime. Ann had lost her job in the circulation department at the New Haven paper sixteen months ago. Even though she’d found some other ways to make a living, I could imagine money was tight.

For about a year, she’d been running these so-called “purse parties” where women could buy imitation designer bags for a fraction of the price of the real ones. Sheila had turned our place over to Ann one night not long ago to run one. It was quite an event, like one of those Tupperware things-or at least what I imagine one of those Tupperware things are like.

Twenty women invaded the house. Sally, from work, came, as well as Doug Pinder’s wife, Betsy. I was particularly surprised when Sheila’s mother, Fiona, showed up, with her husband Marcus in tow. Fiona could afford a genuine Louis Vuitton if she wanted one, and I couldn’t see her carrying around a bag that wasn’t the real deal. But Sheila, worried that Ann would get a poor turnout, had begged her mother to come. It was Marcus who finally persuaded Fiona to make the effort.

“Be sociable,” he’d apparently told her. “You don’t have to actually buy one. Show up and support your daughter.”

I hated to be cynical, but I couldn’t help wondering whether his motives had little to do with making his stepdaughter happy. An event like this, you had to figure there’d be a lot of women there, and Marcus liked to check out the ladies.

Marcus and Fiona got to our place first, and when the women started arriving, he made a point of greeting them as they came through the door, introducing himself, offering to get each a glass of wine, making sure they all had a place to sit as they began to drool over leather and fake labels. His antics appeared to embarrass Fiona. “Stop making a fool of yourself,” she’d snapped, taking him aside at one point.

Once Ann’s sales pitch got under way and Marcus and I had retreated to the back deck with a couple of beers, he said, somewhat defensively, “Don’t worry, I’m still madly in love with your mother-in-law. I just like women.” He smiled. “And I think they like me.”

“Yeah,” I replied. “You’re a stud muffin.”

Ann did pretty well that night. Made a couple of thousand dollars-even knockoff purses could run several hundred bucks-and for hosting the event, Sheila got to pick any bag she wanted.

Even if the Slocums couldn’t afford repairs to their house, purses and policing were paying well enough for Ann to drive a three-year-old Beemer sedan, and Darren had a Dodge Ram pickup that gleamed red. Only the pickup was in the driveway as we approached the house.

“Is Emily having any other friends sleep over?” I asked Kelly.

“Nope. Just me.”

We stopped at the curb.

“You okay?” I asked her.

“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.”