Craig Smith - Cold Rain

Molly walked up. ‘I think you’ve asked all the questions you need to.’

Jacobs, who apparently thought he was about to get a confession, was not really happy about Molly stepping into it, but he hunched his shoulders and grinned.

‘Now I’ll kindly ask you to get off our property,’

Molly told him, ‘and next time call us before you come driving out here.’

Detective Dalton leaned down so Molly could see his guileless eyes. ‘We’re not sure we need to see you again, either of you, Ms Albo, but we’ll make sure to call ahead if we do. Thanks again for the coffee.’

Molly stood close to me as we watched them swing around the circle and drive down the hill.

Molly whispered to me as if they might actually hear her. ‘They think you killed that girl, David.’

I couldn’t answer her. Truth is I could barely breathe.

‘Did you see Johnna Masterson the other night?’

Molly asked when we were inside the house again.

‘I told you what happened.’

‘Yes, but we both know you have issues with the truth.’

I smiled as if Molly had missed the whole point, which I guess she had. ‘Can’t you see what’s happening?’

‘I can see you looked like hell when that Detective Jacobs started pushing you around.’

‘I didn’t care for his attitude.’

‘Do you want me to stay?’

‘Stay?’

‘Cancel my flight. Until this gets resolved, I mean.’

‘You do whatever you want, Molly. I’m not in trouble with these people.’

‘David, those two aren’t finished with you. If I leave now they’re going to think it’s because I know something.’

‘There’s nothing to know, nothing connecting me to that woman.’

‘You went to see her.’

I shrugged indifferently. ‘Other than that.’

‘She charged you with sexual harassment.’

‘She was misinformed about statements I had made.

It wasn’t her fault.’

‘You think the cops will buy that?’

I thought about another lie, but stopped myself. ‘No.

Not after what happened at the funeral home.’

Molly stared me without speaking.

‘It would mean a lot if you stayed,’ I said finally.

‘I’ll make some calls.’

Lucy came home from school while I was in the barn. We talked for a while, and then she went into the house. She and Molly were upstairs in Lucy’s bedroom when I found them.

‘We’re going out to dinner,’ Molly said.

‘Great,’ I said.

‘Just the two of us.’

I went upstairs to my third floor monk’s cell to change clothes and watched from my window until they appeared. They took Lucy’s Toyota. Later, I rummaged around in the pantry for something to eat.

There was plenty of food. The trouble was I hadn’t gotten a supply of beer, and I wanted something to drink. Food was optional, drink the staff of life.

The truck drove itself to my old haunts. I had the meatloaf special with a couple of beers, followed by three shots of whiskey at the next stop. Three bars, three more drinks. Everyone asked where I had been.

I had a different answer at each bar. I said I’d had a consulting gig in Poland. That was at the first bar. At the second I said I’d been born again for a while, off booze entirely. At the next I said I had been in the Peace Corps in South America. At another, I said I had gone to Texas for a couple of years to work on a ranch busting broncos. The only story they called me on was the born again nonsense. They could believe the religion, nothing wrong with that, and I certainly needed it, but they knew I wasn’t about to give up drinking!

A co-ed was curious about what had happened to me at school. She had fabulous breasts, almost in Johnna Masterson’s league, and a bright-eyed innocence I found disconcerting so late into a good binge.

I told her I just needed some time off. She answered,

‘I heard you were fired.’

‘I’m taking some time off until they fire me,’ I said.

Having got what she wanted, and just a little accidental rub against my arm while she operated, she drifted off to join a younger drunk. I had persuaded myself she was interested in nailing a prof before the end of the semester and almost out of time. Of course, ex-profs don’t really count. I left feeling old and foolish, like my friend and mentor Walt Beery. In my truck I considered the temptation: those wide innocent eyes, those great, round breasts. I swore at my folly. I had been playing her along with the cool indifference of a mature man, imagining it was just for fun, knowing I could resist if she wanted something more than a little flirtation. But if it hadn’t been just the gossip she had wanted, I knew we would have ended up in the cab of my truck. Beth Ruby all over again.

I was faithful because I hadn’t been tempted. All I wanted at that moment was a good excuse. In fact I wanted more than an excuse. I wanted to kick up a little dust. Fortunately, I knew where to find plenty of dust.

I walked into the glass Slipper around midnight. Buddy Elder was not there. Neither was Denise. The doorman didn’t remember my face, or he didn’t care. I watched several dancers, picked my favourite and bought a lap dance. She was the very opposite of my wife, compact hips, hardly any breasts at all, dark hair, a small red mouth. I guessed her to be nineteen or twenty. She was just plain enough that she had to work to make a living, just proud enough that she substituted athleticism for sexual wiles. I liked that. Sexual wiles feel like an act if they’re not done well. You can’t fake a body slam. She made hard, repeated contact against my torso. She pressed her flat chest against my face with bony enthusiasm. Her eyes were distant, unfocused, completely at odds with the vitality of her young body, as if to say, nothing personal here. It was just the thing I needed, and I bought a second dance. I thought she might spot a sucker and play me a bit more skilfully, at least until she emptied my pockets, but I got the same thing. Slap, slide, breast-bone to nose bone, staring off into the distance, wagging her buttocks over my crotch.

As she was slipping her skimpy top over her practically nonexistent breasts, I asked her if Denise Conway was still working here. The girl focused. ‘How do you know Denise?’

I could see I had made a mistake, but I couldn’t understand what it was. Old habits die hard. In a tight spot, I always conjured up a true statement. The ghost of Tubs. ‘She was a student of mine this fall,’ I said.

‘She said if I came out here and saw her dancing it would embarrass the hell out of her.’ I gave the dancer a nasty leer, ‘So I thought I’d try it. Only I get here and I don’t see her around.’

The girl relaxed. I had served up enough truth for her to buy it. Who knows, maybe she even thought I looked like a professor. Good diction, straight teeth, chalk dust under my fingernails, or maybe it was that I was a horny old goat. ‘Denise don’t dance under her real name is why I asked.’ She laughed. ‘I guess I should say she don’t dance at all no more. She got married.’

‘Married?’ I expect I blinked. I know my mouth hung open Wade-style.

‘Right before Thanksgiving. The guy she married used to come in here all the time, but now he don’t want anyone looking at her no more. You know how it goes.’

‘Buddy’s friend? Roy, Ray? Something like that?’ I asked.

‘Roger. And he used to be Buddy’s friend. Buddy and Denise broke up because of him. They had this big fight in here because of her. Everybody was like… how? Turns out Denise is like no dummy. Turns out, Roger is rich.’

‘Lucky Denise.’

‘Me? I’d rather have Buddy.’

I drove by Buddy’s house. He was home. I drove by the Beery residence. The place was dark, the newly-weds apparently already in bed. At the farm I found Molly’s rental and Lucy’s Toyota parked side by side in the shed.