Craig Smith - Cold Rain

One of them told me to stop where I was and to put my hands on my head. He came toward me with his hand on his nightstick. His partner worked backup for him. When he got to me he asked me to step toward the house. I did. At his request, I placed my hands against the house and spread my legs. He patted me down, then let me stand up again. ‘I’d like for you to come back to the patrol car with me, sir.’

I did as he asked. His partner went inside and talked to Buddy. ‘You know the person in that house, do you, Mr Albo?’ my officer asked me after he had checked my identification.

‘Joe Elder. Buddy,’ I said. ‘He called me up a few minutes ago and told me to come over. I got here and he pulled a gun on me.’

‘That’s not quite how we heard it from our dispatcher.’

We batted it back and forth, our respective versions of the truth. By the time his partner returned from the house, I was fairly certain I would be going back to jail. The difference this time was my young friend had trapped himself with a lie. There would be a record of Buddy’s call to me. His flank exposed, I was going to make him pay for his games this time. My cop pointed at me and said, ‘He says he got a phone call, was invited over here to talk.’

The other cop nodded. ‘I got the same story, plus a little more. Your name is Dr Albo, right?’ I said it was.

‘You and Mr Elder are having problems?’

I knew enough about the law not to suggest that Buddy had poisoned my dogs. Statements to the police amounted to public record. A groundless accusation would open me up to charges of slander. For all I knew, that was Buddy’s plan.

‘I don’t like the guy,’ I said, ‘I’m not sure I’d say we have problems.’

‘He tells me you were accusing him of sleeping with your wife.’

I expect I smiled. I hadn’t seen that one coming.

‘ That problem,’ I said.

‘I’m going to let you go with a warning this time, Dr Albo, but I’m also going to file a report on this incident. You come out here again, you’ll be explaining yourself to a judge the next morning. Do I make myself clear?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Let me give you some free advice,’ the senior partner added with a sigh. He had a dozen years on me, a look of perpetual misery that could only come from too much domestic bliss. ‘You’re going through a divorce, am I right?’ I nodded. ‘I see this kind of thing a lot more than you’d believe. Decent, clean-cut woman, all of a sudden she goes for something like that.’ He pointed his thumb absently in the direction of Buddy Elder’s house. ‘Two reasons. First, it makes her feel young again. Maybe she’s not sure if she’s still desirable. She wants to find out. Second reason is she knows it’s going to hurt you.

‘Truth is mostly she wants to hurt you. Now when you come out to this fellow’s house and make threats, maybe even get yourself arrested, she’s going to know she won. You follow me?’ I nodded. I followed. ‘You seem like a bright enough guy, professor. You don’t want to step into that kind of game.’

Once I was in the truck again and had started away, I began laughing. The son of a bitch was good!

‘I said I want to think about it,’ Molly told me the following afternoon.

I paced nervously, my cell phone pressed to my ear.

‘You said you never wanted to sell the farm.’

‘We both said a lot of things, David. Look, I want to go down to Florida for a few weeks. Take a look at the situation. Doc says the housing market is getting stronger. I can flip a place in three-four months if I buy the right property.’

‘You’re quoting Doc on real estate, Molly. Listen to yourself.’

She laughed. ‘That’s why I need to go down there and take a look. You move back to the farm.’

‘And Lucy moves in with the Sloans until you decide what you want to do. I know. I just don’t know why you’re doing this.’

‘You’re the one who wanted to move back to the farm. So move back. Make Walt happy.’

‘I’ll break Walt’s heart. I didn’t tell you but we’ve zipped our sleeping bags together.’

‘That’s sweet.’

‘When are you going to take off?’

‘Tomorrow.’

I hated the sound of that word. It meant she had already arranged everything. ‘Am I going to see you again?’

Silence answered. When I didn’t break it, she told me, ‘Why don’t you come out tomorrow around four-thirty? Lucy will be here. The two of you can see me off.’

Molly had the cap on the back of her truck, a few tools packed away in a trunk we had used over the years to keep the horse gear, and a couple of suit-cases. She was travelling light, but not so light she couldn’t stay for the winter if she decided to.

The weather was cold, the sky overcast. A brutal wind swept in from the north.

‘People are crazy to live in this weather,’ Molly announced happily. ‘I called Olga this morning. It’s eighty degrees today, blue skies, and just a light breeze.’

‘I’ll join you, if you want,’ I said. ‘Nothing holding me here.’

‘You hear something from school?’

I shook my head, sorry I had broached the subject.

‘It’s not going to be good when I do.’

‘I don’t get it. Randy Winston’s been screwing around with students since he got here, and everybody knows it.’

‘And Walt can’t open his mouth without offending someone. What don’t you get?’

‘Why you?’

‘I refused to take my lawyer’s advice.’

Molly looked out at the pasture. She shook her head and smiled, recalling our earlier conversation. ‘Every time I start thinking that maybe you’re telling the truth, I remember: this guy made a living by lying.’

‘I never lied on the car lot. I told you that. That was the deal with Tubs.’

‘It makes a good story, David. But I don’t believe it for a minute. You can’t help yourself. You open your mouth and a lie pops out. I think you’re lying about Tubs, like everything else!’

‘How many times have I lied to you, Molly? I mean about something important.’

‘That’s the point! I don’t know. Last summer, you went into town for a couple of hours, you came back with whatever you went for and had a little smile on your face! Did you sleep with Denise? I don’t know!

How many times did you lie about her? I have no way of knowing. You won’t even admit it!’

We heard Lucy’s Toyota come off the pavement and climb the hill. A moment later she pulled her vehicle into the circle behind Molly’s truck.

‘You taking off?’ she called.

‘Not without a hug.’

They hugged. They talked about Lucy flying down for the week of Thanksgiving. Lucy had cleared it at school, pulling the divorce trump card to get them to give her the extra three days.

Molly said there was some good in it after all. Lucy glanced at me to see how I was handling the joke. I just smiled. I was thinking about an axe in Buddy Elder’s skull, though I was more inclined to give him something along the lines of what he had fed Hawthorne amp; Co. I had heard that Liquid Plumber was an especially slow and unpleasant way to go, but naturally for an occasion like Buddy’s imminent demise I would want to do my research. That’s what Ph. D. s do.

‘You’re going to be all right?’ Molly asked me.

‘No,’ I said. ‘The minute you drive away from here half of my reason for living just disappears.’

‘Don’t do this to me.’

‘You asked.’

She walked away, hugged Lucy one last time, and then to my surprise came back to me and threw her arms over my shoulders. ‘You broke my heart, you bastard,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll never forgive you for that.’