Diane Davidson - The Grilling Season

So Arch’s question hung unanswered as Macguire Perkins galumphed slowly into the kitchen. His yellowed eyes were difficult to look at, as were his hollow cheeks and emaciated frame. When I first met him, he’d been strong, a basketball player and bodybuilder. Now, thin and lethargic, Macguire seemed to teeter on his long legs like a precariously staked scarecrow.

“Well,” he murmured without enthusiasm, how’s everybody?”

“Not so hot,” Arch mumbled. Macguire sat down at the table, ran his fingers through his long, unevenly shorn red hair – going to the barber gave him a headache – and stared forlornly at the pudding and juice. Then he sighed and pushed both away. Undaunted, I poured him a glass of milk. He took one sip. When I pulled the hot, I puffed biscuits out of the oven, he said, “I hope you didn’t make those for me. Because I can’t even look at them. Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” I lied encouragingly, and set the pan on a rack to cool. So much for today’s hearty breakfast.

“My dad’s been arrested,” Arch announced in a tone that said, Can you believe the injustices of this world?

“Bummer,” replied Macguire. He took another tiny sip of milk, then said, “My dad was arrested once, but he doesn’t want anybody to know.”

“For what?” asked Arch, who of course wanted to know.

“Drunk and disorderly,” Macguire replied matter-of-factly. “It was after my mom left and Daddy-o couldn’t handle it.”

Arch closed his eyes and shook his head. I turned away and ran hot water and soap into the biscuit-batter bowl.

“I have to cater tonight,” I announced. “Stanley Cup celebration party. Marla is calling Todd to see if you can go over there, Arch. Do you feel up to helping me, Macguire?”

“Can I see how I feel later?” His smile was wan. “I want to help. You know folks think that if there’s a thin caterer, they won’t gain any weight eating the food you serve.”

Before I could voice my opinion about this theory, Arch sighed. “I don’t want to go to Todd’s,” he said morosely.

“Man,” said Macguire, “you are in one tight mood, big A. Why don’t you go for a walk with me? We’ll go visit Kids’ Vids if you want, see if they have any cool new games.”

Arch sighed again. “It’s going to rain. Besides, Dad might call.”

Macguire strained his neck to look outside, where the sun shone between a few drifts of cloud. “What, you predict the weather? That’s pretty cool.” By the door, Jake let loose with another of his howls. “Come on, buddy, we’ll go by your dad’s office and see if there’s any news. We’ll even take the dog. If it rains, we’ll all get wet.”

“oh, you just want to go see ReeAnn,” Arch accused.

When Macguire’s jaundiced-appearing face blushed the color of a sweet potato, I knew Arch had found a target. I said, “ReeAnn probably won’t be in any mood for company.”

“Sure she will,” Arch countered. “ReeAnn likes to see Macguire. They took driver ed together, and now she has a Porsche. He’s had a crush on her forever. And not even because of the Porsche,” he glumly added.

“Gee, Arch,” Macguire said, “thank you for pointing all this out. You and the hound dog want to walk or not?”

Arch regarded me warily from behind his thick f glasses. “So can Dad call me from the jailor what?”

“You can call him and then he’ll call you back. But I’d say you might be better off waiting. Besides, as you know, he’ll have to call his office at some point.”

“All right,” said Arch, defeated. He took Jake’s leash from its hook on the wall and departed.

“So what’s Dr. Korman been arrested for?” Macguire asked as soon as the door closed on Arch.

I said, “Murder.” Outside, Jake howled with happiness.

Macguire sipped the milk and didn’t miss a beat. “Oh yeah? Who’d he kill?”

“Macguire, if you want to go into police work, you need to learn to say, ‘Whom did they say he killed?’ “

“Okay, who’d they say he bumped off?”

“His girlfriend. Suz Craig.”

Macguire’s rusty eyebrows shot up. “Uh-oh. How’d he do it? Wait. How’re they saying she bought?”

“Beaten to death, looked like. The technical term would be multiple blunt-force injuries, I think.” I had another flash of Suz’s bruised and broken body in the ditch.

“Huh,” said Macguire. “Too bad.” On the deck, Arch was having a noisy heart-to-heart with Jake about the attachment of the leash. “So this dead broad was your ex-husband’s chick? Or … one of them, anyway?”

I took a steadying sip of coffee. The only activity Macguire energetically pursued during his convalescence was reading Raymond Chandler. Unfortunately, it sometimes took me a moment to translate the private-dick lingo. “Why do you ask that?”

Macguire frowned. “Uh, ask what?”

I said patiently, “Why did you ask if Suz Craig was one of his… girlfriends?”

“Well, wasn’t she? I thought he had a lot of girlfriends.”

“Yes,” I said cautiously. “But I thought Suz was his only girlfriend. His only current girlfriend.”

“Oh.” He scowled at the milk he’d scarcely touched. “Well.”

“Macguire, I’ve tried to put as much distance as possible between my ex-husband’s love life and myself. I don’t ask for any details.”

“So, what’re you saying? You’re feeling bad because his girlfriend croaked, huh?”

“Yes.” I exhaled. “A woman is dead, and like it or not, at the moment I’m feeling extremely guilty because I never pressed charges against him and got him sent to jail. If I had, maybe Suz Craig would be alive today.”

“Don’t feel too bad, Goldy.” His face assumed its typically philosophical expression. “Nobody can go back in time. It’s a bummer, but there it is.” He shrugged.

I took another discreet sip of my coffee and bit into one of the biscuits. It was moist, hot, and comforting. “Macguire, do you know if my ex-husband had other current girlfriends besides Suz Craig? Did you hear or see something… at his office, say? Why did you say ‘one’ of his girlfriends?”

Macguire scraped back his chair and avoided my eyes. “Uh,” he replied slowly, “maybe I should just talk to Tom about it.”

“Probably that would be a good idea. But it’s unlikely Tom will be assigned to this case.”

“Bummer.” He sighed. “Did Dr. Korman have another girlfriend that you know about?”

“Oh, well, no, not exactly. Maybe I’m just imagining things because I was, like, jealous. I just thought… that he had something going with ReeAnn.”

“You saw John Richard and ReeAnn together? Away from the office?”

“Well, yeah. He was over at ReeAnn’s house once, in the evening, when I dropped by to give her a book about Porsches. I mean, I didn’t have to take it over. I was like, taking it instead of mailing it because I just wanted to see her. But Dr. Korman was over there and they were cooking out.”

“How long ago was this?”

“Oh … end of the school year, I think. You know Arch and I walk over to the office sometimes. But ReeAnn and I never talk about any deep stuff while Arch is visiting his dad. Or seeing if his dad wants to visit.” He thought for a moment. “But one time I did ask her if she wanted to go to the CD store with me – “

“Macguire.”

“Yeah. Well, when we went to the store, we looked at CDs and talked about this and that and I asked ReeAnn if there were, like, any guys in her life at the moment, and she got all secretive and said, maybe. Then I asked her about her job, and she had all kinds of things to say. She didn’t like the secretary who had worked there before her, because that woman was fired to make way for ReeAnn. Or so ReeAnn thought.”