7. Julie
seven
Julie
The headlights cut off a foot from the garage door.
I shut down the engine and let the dash clock tick.
In the rearview, my own eyes looked reptilian: slit and glassy, reflecting the sodium burn from the porch light.
I stayed in the car, engine pinging, knuckles whitening and unwhitening on the steering wheel.
There was a light burning in the kitchen window.
I didn’t leave it on. I remembered—one, two, three clicks: stove, overhead, hall.
Everything was dark when I left for the office this morning.
I always checked twice, sometimes three, especially since the first time the Scorpions tagged my fence line and left a crushed beer can on the doorstep.
I made a habit of it, the way you make a habit of counting your own teeth after you get punched.
Now the kitchen glowed like the only safe house on the block.
I sat a minute more, listening. The old neighborhood had a signature noise: wind, dog chain, distant train. All present and accounted for. Nothing extra. I considered calling Bram to see if he’d send someone over to check the place out before I went inside.
Bram. I liked the way his name sounded on my tongue. I liked thinking about him. When was the last time a man had saved my life? Never. Men in suits didn’t do that. They protected themselves and their money. Was I going to have to prosecute him for murder? No, I wouldn’t do that.
I waited longer. You learn to do that after a while. Let the world come to you. I thought about the last time I’d been surprised and decided I didn’t want tonight to be a repeat.
I got out, heels smacking concrete, and left the briefcase in the passenger seat.
The night was still, a little too cold for this time of year.
I moved up the walk slowly, left hand in my purse, right free.
The porch light was just a bulb, no fixture, and it made me feel naked.
I stopped at the door, pressed my palm to the glass, and waited for my own breath to fog it.
There was nothing but the orange rectangle of the kitchen, and a thin edge of movement, barely visible.
I pressed my thumb to the latch, made a note to get it replaced with a real deadbolt, and eased the door open.
There was the smell of ice and spilled bourbon, sharp and immediate. I stepped through, toes touching cold tile, and shut the door behind me. It clicked too loud.
She was at the table, right where you’d expect her: jacket still on, close-cropped silver hair perfect as always, hands steady on a tumbler of my best whiskey. Sally Sparta. My mother.
What the fuck. That was the one statement that pretty much summed up our relationship.
On the floor, by the back door, was a body.
Denim jacket, black boots, the wrong kind of hands: knuckles tattooed, two fingers taped together, blood oozing slow through the webbing.
The face was buried in the tile, caved in just above the ear.
The dark halo under the head had already started to congeal, thick and glassy, branching toward the drain under the sink.
Beside the corpse: my cast-iron skillet, handle snapped clean off, the pan itself streaked with blood and a scallop of scalp.
I looked at my mother.
She looked at the whiskey.
For a long time, nobody said anything.
Then, without looking up, she said, “You keep the Blanton’s behind the cleaning supplies. Not even locked.”
I let my purse drop, keys still in my hand, and stared at the body.
It was younger than I expected. Not even thirty.
Bad haircut, cheap leather, the kind of face you didn’t have to memorize because nobody would ever ask for it in a lineup.
The jaw slack, tongue out, eyes staring at the floor, seeing through it to whatever came next.
I pulled a chair. Sat. Crossed my legs. “You could have called.”
She raised her glass, sipped, and then set it down with deliberate care. “Wouldn’t have made a difference.”
My brain started cataloging the scene: entry wound, weapon, blood spatter, direction of fall.
I could see the path he’d taken through the yard, the point where he’d hopped the fence (grass scraped off the toe), the careful way he’d picked the lock on the back door (not careful enough—she’d put in the chain, like always).
The break-in was textbook, but the response was not.
“He had a knife,” Mom said, voice flat as concrete. “In his boot. Didn’t even get it out.”
I looked at her. “You recognized the patch?”
She nodded. “Desert Scorpion. New blood. Didn’t say a word, just ran at me.”
The lines at the corner of her mouth deepened. She didn’t blink. “First hit dropped him,” she said, a little softer now. “Second hit made sure. Third was for me.”
She looked down at her hands, flexing them. “Not as hard as it used to be. But it hurts longer.”
I wanted to reach for her. I wanted to ask if she was okay, but the words dried up in my mouth. Instead, I looked at the skillet, then the body, then back to her.
“You want a lawyer?” I asked, finally.
She smiled. “I have one.”
We sat, with the dead man on the floor and the whiskey between us.
“I won’t be used,” she said, the words slow and heavy. “Not by those men, not by anyone. You understand me, Julie?”
“I understand.”
She tipped her glass and watched the way the liquid curved along the rim. “I raised you harder than this. Raised your sister the same. They thought I was leverage. They thought wrong.”
My voice came out smaller than I wanted. “They came for you.”
She shrugged, as if that made them less dangerous. “Let them come. I’ll bury every one of them myself.”
Had they followed her to my house? No, that didn’t make sense. They came for me. The bar wasn’t an accident. Again, I considered calling Bram, considered getting help from the Jackson Brothers MC.
The light above the sink flickered, then steadied. The blood on the floor gleamed wet and unreal. I told myself to keep looking, keep breathing. The anger settled in, slow and sour.
“You should go upstairs,” I said, standing.
She didn’t. I knew how this was going to go down. Mom was a raw woman. She’d seen things. Done things. Things she’d never elaborate on. That’s why she pushed me to be something more. “Don’t you call the cops.”
I didn’t. I dialed Ruiz directly. The phone rang twice.
He answered with a voice that sounded as tired as my own.
“Cleanup at my place,” I said. “One body at the back door.”
“Need a statement?”
“Not tonight.”
“I’ll bring a couple of guys. Be there in twenty.”
I hung up. Set the phone face-down on the counter.
The silence returned, thick as the blood on the floor.
My mother drank. The corpse bled. The world outside was still dark, but the kitchen glowed warm and ugly.
I looked at the bottle on the table: Blanton’s, half empty.
The only thing between us now.
She set the glass down, leaned back, and let out a breath. “You going to sit, or you going to stand there judging me?”
I sat.
The light hummed. The blood pooled wider.
The back door swung slightly open, letting in a little desert cold. It smelled like dust and iron.
I poured myself a whiskey and sat with her.
Neither of us said another word.