Eighteen

After the Y the next morning, I decided to let bygones be bygones and go get a water bottle at the Kwik N’ EZ. In my stinky sweats, I didn’t want to inflict myself upon anyone at a real store, and besides, I thought with a certain malevolent glee, they were used to things that didn’t smell especially good around there.

Not paying attention to the staff, I just walked over, picked up the bottle of Poland Spring, and headed for the counter. The owner, Mr. Rebinow, was eyeing me warily the whole time, but he wasn’t working the register. I noticed that he had taken the box of stink bombs off the counter as soon as he saw me walk in.

I paid for the sports bottle, took the top off, and raised the bottle in his direction, which I considered a conciliatory gesture, and left. But he made no sign, no movement, no nod in my direction. Some people—you mess up their store for two stinking days (literally), and they never forgive you.

When I got back to the house, Preston Burke was there, admiring his work. He had finished painting the window frame, and it looked better than at any time we’d lived in the house. The man lacked social skills, but he could certainly fix a window, which was more than I could say for myself.

“Oh, Pres, I forgot to take the money out of the bank. Do you mind if I give you a check?” I could do an online transfer of the money from our savings account later.

“It doesn’t matter, Aaron. You ever think about painting that front door? It really doesn’t match the window anymore.” Burke looked sideways at me, trying to convince me this was a spur-of-the-moment idea.

“Come on, Preston. You’re becoming the Contractor Who Came To Dinner. Besides, painting the door is something I can do myself, and I’ve blown my annual home repair budget on you already.”

He thought about that. “No charge,” he said. “I’d hate to leave the house looking like that. I could take pictures, and use it for promotion to get more work.” I hesitated, and he knew he had me. “Just take a couple hours, maybe half a day.”

Before I knew it, he was scraping the front door in preparation for painting. As we’ve established, I’m damn easy.

The phone was ringing as I walked in the front door. Abby sounded as excited as she’s been since the first pregnancy test came back positive thirteen years ago. You’d think she’d have learned.

“I called the shelter, and they’re holding Warren for us,” she exhaled.

“Warren?” Who the hell was Warren? I pictured Warren Beatty in a homeless shelter, and that seemed wrong.

“The bagel.” Beat, two, three, four. . .

“Oh, the dog!” Give me enough clues, and I’ll still generally fail to solve your mystery for you.

“Can you get up there?” To Hackettstown? Now? When I had such an enticing assignment, like parents to harass?

“I can, but. . .”

“Oh, Aaron, go ahead. We’ll talk about it later. Once you see that face. . .”

I put on my Serious Husband voice. “Abigail, you listen to me. I need you to understand that I am not in favor of us getting a dog.”

“Aaron. . .”

“No. If this is going to happen—and I’m getting the awful sense that it is—you have to understand that this is not my dog. I take no responsibility for it, I don’t want it, I won’t walk it, and the first time it takes a leak on the rug in my office when I’m the only one who’s home, I’m going to kick its little canine butt out into the street. Do you understand that?”

“Sure. Now. . .”

“Abby, do you understand that?”

There was an appalled pause. “Yes. I understand it.”

“You know it to be true? You acknowledge it?”

A little growl in the voice this time. “Yes.”

“Okay, give me the address of this shelter.”

She did, and before I could have a rational thought, I visited MapQuest on the Internet and gotten semi-reasonable directions to the current home of Warren the Bagel. MapQuest estimated it would take me one hour and twenty-three minutes to reach my destination, and it’s rarely wrong.

I bounced the calls from the land line to the cell phone in case school called, and got out the minivan. If I was going to bring home something whose toilet habits were unknown to me, I’d rather have the van.

There are no good tapes in the van, and I’d forgotten to transfer one from the Saturn, so I kept the cassette player turned off, rather than have to suffer through the Backstreet Boys, Smash-mouth, and whatever other bands my daughter had picked up from the radio station her friends told her she liked. I remember when the kids were big Beatles fans, because I told them they were. Times change.

I had enough time during the drive to bounce around a few ideas. If there was in fact a bloodstain at the foot of Cherie Braxton’s bed, that probably meant Legs wasn’t killed while he was lying down. If that were true, why would the killer bother to arrange him on the bed? Why not just let him fall where he stood?

That was the problem with this story—every answer led to another question. I couldn’t think of a reason to move Legs after he was stabbed. Maybe he lay down by himself, just to get comfortable when he died. Uh-huh. Maybe he did a quick fox trot while he was bleeding, too.

And if the stain on the rug was Legs’ blood, why didn’t the police get DNA on it? Abrams had told me the only blood found was on the bed, and that it had soaked through the mattress to the box spring, which Cherie Braxton had told me forced her to get a new bed, which she expected the government to pay for. Fax McCloskey, on the other hand, had already put out a release stating that Ms. Braxton was not entitled to relief from the government. It was the only useful information he’d ever sent to me, or anyone else.

Did the fact that the carpet might have been cleaned with club soda really implicate Stephanie? After all, she wasn’t the only one who used that stuff to clean stains—Friedman had known about it. It was just the swiftness with which she had wiped up Leah’s ketchup that had impressed me—that and being able to think on her feet so rapidly. That didn’t make her a murderer. Necessarily.

The big question, though, was where was the thirteen million, and who had taken it? Stephanie was living well, but not well enough for that. Legs was probably not using the money, what with being dead and all, and that left. . .

Branford T. Purell, killer, bon vivant, corpse. There was absolutely no explanation for a hair of his to be in Braxton’s apartment, and yet, there it was. Could it have ridden in on the killer’s pants or something? Was the killer carrying it around for seven years, waiting for the right moment to drop it and confound the living hell out of law enforcement officials and freelance reporters? Maybe the killer was the Texas state executioner, a man who never had his clothes cleaned. But now, I was just grasping at hairs.

Just then, the cell phone rang, and the number was not recognized by the caller ID service Verizon gives you whether you ask for it or not. So I picked up. And there was The Voice.

“Stop what you’re doing. It’s none of your business.”

“You know,” I said, “this is getting tiresome. Who are you, and what is it you want?” I thought I was starting to recognize The Voice, and I wanted to keep him talking.

“Stop,” said The Voice, and the phone went dead.

Driving up to pick up the dog I didn’t want, I thought: All in all, I wasn’t really getting much out of this day.