Flowering Judas(77)
“I need to get into the trailer again,” he said, when the woman got on the line. “Do you think you can meet me there in—well, as quickly as possible? I’m at The Feldman Funeral Home, so I’m not far.”
“I’ll be over there in a minute and a half,” Charlene Morton said. “But I hope you know what you’re doing. I’ve had about enough of the whole crapload bunch of you.”
“I’m sorry to bother you,” Gregor said. “It won’t take long.”
Gregor put his cell phone back in his pocket and nodded at Tony. “Let’s go,” he said. “Let’s see where we’re going here.”
Tony got the car out of the parking lot, down the side street, and back onto East Main. Seconds later, they were at the intersection with the Kentucky Fried Chicken. Seconds after that, they were passing the nearly deserted shopping center. Barely a hiccup after that, they were at the trailer park. Tony turned the car into the dirt drive and let it bump along against the ruts as women came out of their trailers one by one, just to look at them.
“Want to go to where that green trailer is,” Gregor said, “and then just around it to the trailer on the other side.”
Tony moved slowly. Gregor caught sight of Charlene Morton standing at the door of Chester Morton’s trailer, her Fusion parked in the dust and mud just a few feet away. Gregor tapped Tony on the shoulder and the car eased to a stop.
“Thanks,” Gregor said.
He popped the passenger side door and got out. It was hot today, hot and muggy. The air felt full of rain that hadn’t happened yet. Gregor walked up to the trailer and looked it over. It did not seem changed in any way.
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Charlene Morton said. “I really do hope that. Because I’ve been put through enough by you people.”
“As far as I know, you haven’t been put through anything by me,” Gregor said. “You didn’t think to go inside while you were waiting for me?”
“I told you the last time we did this,” Charlene said. “I don’t go inside. I don’t clean up. I just keep the place. And I’m not going to be keeping it any longer, now that I’m not waiting for Chester to come back anymore.”
“If you’ll let me,” Gregor said, taking the keys.
Charlene Morton gave up the keys reluctantly, but she gave them up. Gregor took them and opened the door. He did not hesitate. He did step in front and go through the door first.
Chester Morton’s body was sitting up in the ancient armchair in the far corner of the minuscule living room.
It was the first thing anybody would see when they walked through the door.
FOUR
1
Althy Michaelman would have slept all day if she could have managed it. She had been out until two in the morning, and she’d been drinking that sweet heavy stuff that gave her a headache that lasted all day. All she wanted to do was to lie down somewhere soft and black out until she didn’t have to give a shit anymore, but that was impossible with Haydee home and slamming around the trailer as if she were in a bowling alley. Haydee wasn’t usually home in the middle of the day. She had work at the Quik-Go, and school, and now she was talking about working somewhere else. It was enough to make Althy tired. It was enough to make her furious.
It was the police sirens that put an end to it. Once those police sirens got going, there was no way to sleep unless you were dead. Or better than dead. Althy tried to remember what they’d done last night to get the liquor, whether they’d finished the bottles, whether they’d brought anything home. She might as well have been trying to remember the fall of Rome. They’d been out near the reservoir, that was all she remembered. They’d started a bonfire, and Dickie Klemm had fallen in.
The police sirens were very loud, and the police lights were very bright, and they were all practically on her doorstep. Althy got up far enough to look through the little window, but there was nothing there to tell her what was going on. It was the middle of the day. People were mostly not coming out of their trailers to find out what was going on.
She hauled herself up on her feet and then out into the little hall. Haydee was not moving around in the living room anymore. Maybe she’d left without delivering her customary lecture. Other people’s daughters said good-bye. Althy’s told her what a fucking piece of trash she was.
Althy went down the hall. It was so narrow she could bump into it from side to side without falling over. She got to the living room and saw Haydee standing very still, looking out the picture window at whatever was happening outside. Christ, Althy thought. Who the hell ever thought to call that fucking thing a picture window?