Julie suspected he was avoiding her for another reason too. He didn’t like the negativity of their situation. And sometimes she just thought his absence was due to Lydia, his so-called bookkeeper, more like soul mate. Julie had been feeling sick about her life for a couple of years and hadn’t decided yet what to do about it. Except for the “having her man in jail” part, she thought of herself as a country song. She was alone a lot while he was drinking beer and hanging out somewhere else. She guessed the rest of it.
Today, for some reason, she was up in the dark, pulling on her jeans and following Reed into the garage, where he’d gone without stopping for coffee in the kitchen.
“Reed?” She didn’t even know what her question was. Do you love me? Do you hate me? Should we get a divorce? Hey, say something. But it was almost too late to start asking the deep questions. She could see it in his face… when she saw his face. These days, he wasn’t doing much looking at her.
“Hey, baby,” he said without turning around.
When she saw what he was doing, she stopped short. Reed was loading his fishing gear into his truck. Two rods, the nets, and the bait cooler. The tackle box. Life jackets, again two. It made her think of Brokeback Mountain, a movie she’d hated. The word “gay” popped into her head, and she almost choked on it.
“You going fishing?” She didn’t get the question out. She stopped because Reed would think it was a stupid question. He didn’t like her stating the obvious. Like, they couldn’t have children, so how about making another plan? He didn’t like that at all.
She could see he was going fishing. But why and with whom? Confused, she looked back into the kitchen, where the clock on the microwave said it was 5:45 a.m. Last she knew, it was Wednesday. Was he getting the boat down from the boat high-rise it lived on and going out fishing in the middle of the week when there were all those headaches at Panther Ridge to deal with? She just couldn’t speak up and make the query. Funny thing about men: they could make a girl feel like doggy doo just for asking a simple question. Reed hadn’t told her last night he was going fishing. He didn’t tell her now when she was standing there, watching him load up the truck. He was a Republican, real secretive, and just didn’t like to tell.
“Have a nice day,” she said finally, and went back into the house.
“You too, babe,” he replied.
THE POLICE CHIEF showed up, and Alfie talked with him. He was a big, heavy guy with a gray crew cut who’d been in the department since the town was half its size. Chief Hogle had hired Alfie, and the two got along okay.
“Don’t let anything out until we inform the families,” Hogle warned in a soft voice. Comcast and the local ABC affliliate were only a few blocks away on 10th Street. There’d be coverage. Alfie nodded. He didn’t have to be told procedure.
“’Specially not that dickhead at the Herald – what’s his name?”
“Pride.”
“Yeah. Okay, you know what to do.” He got back in his car, his uniform already damp from the spring humidity, and headed in to headquarters.
Alfie left the scene soon after, before the bodies were bagged. The two criminologists already had a scenario in mind. No motive yet, of course, but it seemed clear enough to them that no third party could have contributed to the deaths of the two individuals in the truck. There was no mystery here, just a sad outcome of an encounter gone wrong. All they had to do was inform the families and figure out why.
By noon the Ford truck in question had been brought into a warehouse for examination, and Alfie was up in Bradenton doing what he liked least in the world to do. He was knocking on the door where Lydia Dale had lived, looking for a family member to notify about her death. No answer from inside, so he nosed around, asking information from the neighbors in the other units in the complex. Pretty much everyone was out at work at that time of day, but the two oldsters who lived in units kitty-corner to hers said she came from Ocala, worked early and came back late, a real nice girl. Kept to herself. No boyfriend that anyone knew. Her car was not in the space marked for her unit. Alfie figured she must have met him somewhere, maybe the place where his wallet disappeared. Eventually a janitor opened the door of Lydia’s unit for him.
Right about this time, Alfie missed his partner, Mudd, but would never in a million years admit it. He called her Muddy. Betty Mudd was older than he, quite a few pounds heavier too, and she might have been a man in drag for all he knew. The woman had balls. She came from New York, the city, and didn’t miss much. Alfie sneezed and hit the light, then scratched an eyebrow at the dead girl’s neat little pink unit. Doll-size chairs and sofa. Little round table outside what must optimistically have been called a kitchen. From her taste, the vic could have been fifteen.
Alfie snapped on thin gloves, took a breath, and sneezed again before digging in. He was looking for names of next of kin, photos, date book, meds: pretty much the story of the dead woman’s life, and he went at it slowly. He found a phone book with the names he was looking for, pay stubs that showed she’d worked for Blackwolf. There were also photos of her and a bunch of smiling people in Blackwolf T-shirts at what looked like a Rotary bowling tournament. Alfie was debating about getting on the road and driving up to Ocala to talk to Lydia’s mom when his cell phone vibrated in his pocket.
The chief screamed in his ear, “Where the hell are you, Rose?”
“Up in Bradenton. At Lydia Dale’s house.”
“Well, get the hell back here.”
“What’s up?”
“That fucking Pride went down to North Port to get a story from Lustfield’s wife. She’s hysterical on the phone.”
“I’m there,” Alfie said, bagging the Rotary photographs and the phone book.
JULIE DIDN’T KNOW what the man was up to. He was kind of a geeky-looking guy, photographing the outside of her home as if for House & Garden. Ha-ha. Or as if he were from Homes & Land, and her place were about to go on the market. Briefly, she considered the possibility. Who knew what Reed might be up to? Maybe one of those new houses in Panther Ridge was for her. No chance of that – they were worth millions. She watched the guy with the camera for a moment, readying herself to go out there and burst his bubble. The place was not for sale. People did the weirdest things. His being out there with the camera reminded her of the time, a few years back, when a sniper appeared outside her weaving room. She’d seen him through the sliders that led to the patio and pool area, and did a double take as she was setting up her loom for gossamer scarves. The man, wearing fatigues and army boots, appeared to be dancing with an AK-47 right near the lake and the dock. He spun that rifle around and then stopped, raising the barrel up at her, in the house. Back then, the Lustfields’ was the first finished building in the subdivision, so there weren’t any neighbors to rally for help. Julie had watched him for a moment, strangely calm. She knew he couldn’t see her behind the sun blind she’d bought for the window to keep the deadly UVs out but let the light in. She’d stood there just long enough to know he was a mental case – just another Florida Cracker with a gun, living in a world all his own. She’d called the police, and when the entire department arrived in four squad cars and got out with their guns drawn, her sniper indignantly explained he was after the bobcat that ate his “daawg.” They set him right, telling him he couldn’t kill a bobcat even if it ate his mother.