Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I should have called Opal while I was still in the house.
Not that I’d memorized her number—and not that I could turn my cell phone back on.
So even if I’d thought about it, I couldn’t have.
I really needed one of those phone chargers you plugged into a car’s cigarette lighter.
And I’d probably have one if I hadn’t been so busy lately.
Although, I always seemed to be… Whatever.
Deputy Twiss showed up, which was annoying. It was late, you’d think he’d have gone home. He’d probably been napping at the sheriff’s office while making triple overtime. He certainly looked like I’d woken him up.
“I got a call about a dead body?”
“Yeah, in that house there. Second floor, first bedroom. Guy named Denny. Drug overdose.”
Before I finished, I realized I should have called this in anonymously. It was going to be hard to explain.
“Whose house is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“What were you doing in there?”
“I was looking for Denny.”
“Denny… What?”
“I don’t know his last name.” I’d forgotten it. Three Ativan, remember?
“You broke into a random house, looking for a guy whose name you don’t know. Am I getting this right?”
“I didn’t break into the house. The doors were open.”
“You were trespassing, then.”
I was probably trespassing but… “That’s Denny’s car. The Thunderbird. He works at his dad’s barbershop.”
“Denny Hazzard.”
Crap, I should have remembered that. He was aptly named.
“Sure. Denny Hazzard is on the second floor. Don’t you want to go in and see?”
“Why were you looking for him?”
“A friend asked me to.”
“Why did you look for him here?”
“I heard that people do meth in these summer houses sometimes.”
“You heard from who?”
“The grapevine.”
“You’re sure he died of a drug overdose?”
“No. I’m not the coroner.”
Another of the sheriff’s SUVs pulled up and a deputy got out. Twiss nodded toward the house.
“Is Detective Lehmann on his way?” I asked.
“You said drug overdose. Do you think Denny was murdered?”
“There’s no blood, so he wasn’t stabbed or shot. It didn’t look like he was strangled or anything. Plus, he was a drug addict.”
“So, we don’t need Lehmann, do we?”
“Can I go then?”
“I’m still thinking about charging you with trespass.”
“Then I should call my lawyer.”
He chewed on that for a moment, then said, “You can go. I know where you live.”
They were laughing and playing pinocle when I got home. Emerald was sitting upright in a playpen from the sixties that had been set up on the floor. I’d specifically said no to playpens after a conversation with a woman in the formula aisle at the Meijer over in Traverse.
So much information in those first few seconds, I was having trouble sorting it out.
“There you are,” Barbara said. “We brought a pizza from The Wagon Wheel; we saved you a few pieces. I’ll heat it up.”
She got up while I hung up my puffer jacket and kicked my boots off.
“Play my hand for me,” Barbara said.
“I don’t know how to play.”
“Neither does she,” Nana Cole said, and then cackled. That’s when I realized there were wine glasses on the table. She was drunk.
“Emerald is sitting up all by herself,” I said—mostly to avoid saying all the things I shouldn’t, like they’re talking, they’re drinking, the baby’s in a playpen even though—
“Oh, she’s been doing that for days. You’ve been running around so much you missed it. It’s your play.”
There were two cards sitting in the middle of the table. I picked up Barbara’s hand, five cards, and said, “I have no idea what to play.”
Bev looked at my hand, and said, “Play the king of hearts.”
I actually had two kings of hearts, which seemed wrong, but then I didn’t know the rules. I played the king, and Bev said, “There, you won the trick.”
“With your help,” Nana Cole said.
“He doesn’t know what he’s doing.”
“He never does.”
“Hey.”
Barbara interrupted with, “Henry, would you like a glass of wine?”
Given the Ativan in my system, I’d likely fall right to sleep. I said, “Absolutely.”
“It’s your lead,” Nana Cole said.
“My what?”
“You play first.”
“Play the ace of trump,” Barbara said, as she poured my glass of wine.
“What’s trump?”
“Barbara, he can get his own pizza, sit back down and play.”
I gave Barbara her seat. I leaned against the counter next to the stove making faces at my sister and sipping wine.
“Where’ve you been all night?” Nana Cole asked.
I was sure she thought I’d staged the whole thing to get them all talking again and had probably just gone to a movie, so I was pleased to say, “Oh, yeah, Brian Belcher is the one who really killed Bobbie LaCross. I’m going to go and explain that to Detective Lehmann in the morning.
And Denny Hazzard died of an overdose. I found his body. ”
That stopped the card game. The women just stared at me for a moment. Finally, Nana Cole said, “And you’re just sitting here playing cards and not saying a word?”
Apparently, she’d forgotten the part where she made me sit down and play a game I didn’t know the rules to.
“Poor Joe,” Barbara said.
“It’s been coming,” Bev said.
And that made me wonder if anyone in this place knew what a secret was. Obviously, no one kept them.
“Was it murder?” Nana Cole asked. “Did someone kill Joe’s boy?”
“No. I don’t think so.”
“Well, what do you know?”
“You just asked me. Why ask me if you’re not going to believe what I say?”
“If you found him, you must have seen something. Bruising, scratches, blood, bullet holes.”
“Nana, there was none of that. I really think he overdosed.” And then, to change the subject, I asked, “Are you going to ask how I figured out it was Brian Belcher who killed Bobbie?”
They stared at me a moment until Barbara said, “Well, tell us.”
After I caught them up, I got the pizza out of the oven and took a bite. It wasn’t bad, but the Ativan had killed my hunger. I just nibbled.
“I don’t believe it,” Nana Cole said. “Brian Belcher is so much younger than Patty. They can’t possibly be involved.”
“I don’t know,” Bev said. “Patty is still an attractive woman.” A sentence that now sounded much different than it would have just days before.
“I think it’s romantic,” Barbara said. “Confessing like that to save the man you love.”
“Stupid is more like it,” Nana Cole said. “She’ll go to prison, and he’ll find some young tramp and that’ll be that.”
“Well, that won’t happen,” Barbara said. “Henry’s going to tell the sheriff what’s really happening. And then it will all work out.”
Even I thought that was unlikely, but I nodded agreement anyway. A few minutes later, Bev and Barbara said it was time to go. Once they got their coats and gloves and hats on, Barbara asked, “Do you need me to come back in the morning so you can go to the sheriff?”
“It’s okay. I’ll just bring Emerald along. I think Detective Lehmann likes her.”
“You can leave her with me,” Nana Cole said, grumpily. “I’m not completely helpless.”
“I’ll bring her with me.”
After they walked out the door, I picked up the baby and said, “We’re going to go upstairs and go to bed.” I should probably have left it at that, but I had to say, “I’m glad things are better.”
She shrugged and said, “Nobody cares what a couple of old ladies do.”
Okay, that was a challenge. Did she mean their gayness would matter if they were younger? Did she mean it would matter if they were a couple of old men? And she, an old lady herself, couldn’t really believe it didn’t matter what old ladies did—could she?
Showing incredible restraint, I said, “Okay then,” and we went upstairs to bed.