Afterlife - Douglas Clegg [50]
Then, she shot a sharp glance back at Julie. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit, Wife Number Two?”
“I thought maybe there’d be pieces of Hut’s life that you…well, that we could discuss.”
“How’s my son?”
“He’s doing good.”
Amanda gave her that cat-like look, as if she were playing with her. “I’m surprised.”
“He’s a…a wonderful boy.”
“That’s more of a surprise. I haven’t seen him since he was six. He was a pretty little boy. But he’s dead to me, isn’t he? Does he ask about me?”
“Sometimes.”
Amanda laughed, full-throated, with something malevolent in the sound. It made Julie nervous. “I bet it’s not good when he does. I bet he gets violent. I bet he curses my name. As well he should. I’m a monstrous mother.” She said this last part as if it was of no consequence. “He’s a little brain-damaged boy.” She watched Julie for a reaction. “I dropped him on his head when he was a baby. I suppose that’s what Hut told you. I beat him until he just got to be damaged goods.”
Julie was ready. She reined in her reaction. Don’t give her ammo. Julie fingered the edge of her chair. She looked at her own hands. At the ring on her left hand. Do not react to her poison. That’s what Hut had called it. Her poison.
“You knew Hut when he was young,” Julie said, slowly.
“We were kids. It was the last good time of my life. Under the age of twenty. After twenty, it was all downhill for me. Nervous breakdown city. Hallucinations. Seeing…ghosts.” Amanda grinned wickedly. “But I don’t want to bother your pretty little face with any of that. So, now that he’s dead, you want to know about him? Why’s that, Wife Numbah Two? Because when he was alive, maybe you never knew him at all? That doesn’t surprise me, either. Nothing surprises me. You think he didn’t pick you out of a line-up of possibles. He did. I know him. I’ve known him since he was younger than Matt. You know, he’s still with us. He may be in the back seat of your car right now, for all I know. Just waiting to surprise you.”
“I don’t find this funny at all. This kind of talk.”
“Sensitive pretty little Wife Number Two. All right, fair enough. You want to know what Hut was like? I knew him before he was adopted out. I knew him when he was a bad bad little boy. Worse than Matt, and you think Matt’s bad.”
“Matt is an angel,” Julie said, feeling defensive.
“You’re good. You’re really good, Wife Number Two. You can lie with the same look in your eyes as when you tell the truth. My foster mother used to call it the clear blue eyes of a born liar. They say it takes a criminal mind to do that well.”
They both were quiet after this for several minutes. Amanda Hutchinson glanced around the room as if she were taking mental photographs of the moment.
Then Amanda broke the silence. “Did he ever tell you about when we were children?”
“Only a little,” Julie said. Then she added, “You were in a school together?”
Amanda kept a Cheshire cat grin on her face. “The drugs I get here stunt me a little. In the brain. They turn off things that hurt, and they seem to turn on the warm fuzzies. But I can’t get used to it. Not being able to figure things out, the way I used to. Like why you’re really here. It’s not about my son, it’s not about Hut. It’s about something else, only the warm fuzzies have taken over my brain and I can’t quite pinpoint it. You’re pretending it’s about remembering Hut in all his glory, the doctor to the poor, the wonderful man who gave you a daughter