The Most Dangerous Thing - Laura Lippman [66]
The discussion was moot. The man was dead at their feet. Events and possibilities swirled around them, fast as the water rushing around the man, unstoppable, implacable. Any number of things could have killed him. The fall, the blow to his head, a heart attack, drowning. What good would it do to tell anyone about the children, how the man had chased them through the woods, much less why. They agreed that Clem would place an anonymous call to 911 from a pay phone downtown, reporting a body in the woods, then check the morgue to find out when a John Doe was brought in. An autopsy would determine if it had been a heart attack, or even a stroke, brought on by exertion. No one was to blame for what happened.
But when Clem finally called the morgue on an elaborate pretext, claiming he needed to collect data on all over-fifty deaths in September for a research project, there wasn’t a single John Doe who matched the description of the man in the woods. Had his body not been found? Could he have been wrong about the man’s death? If so—
He pushes his plate away, incapable of finishing. He should buy something for the girls, as he thinks of Tally and Gwen. But what can he take them? Tally is proprietary about her menus and resents any unsolicited contributions. Gwen no longer eats sweets. The market’s flowers are not the best, a little bedraggled and mealy-looking. He has nothing to bring them but himself, old and tired at the end of another day.
Chapter Twenty
“I found my thrill,” Larry sings, “up on Strawberry Hill.”
“Strawberry Hill Apartments . . . for–e–ver,” Rita sings back, unwrapping glasses. Lord, Mickey did a shit job packing them, and a few are chipped. Inevitably, it’s her nice ones, the matched set of heavy Mexican amber from Pier One. Why couldn’t the freebies from the filling station giveaways end up cracked?
But even the broken glasses can’t dim Rita’s mood, although she makes a mental note to find Mickey later and give her what-for.
Moving, which is supposed to be one of the most stressful events in a person’s life, has brought Rita nothing but a constant, giggling joy since she signed the lease on the Strawberry Hill apartment last month. She floats through her days, her temper soft, and she rockets through her nights, shooting up, up, up on waves of sex, then falling into the best sleep she has ever known. She can’t believe Larry volunteered to move in with her, without even being asked. Being legit—sharing a bed and an apartment with Larry, if not the actual lease—is the best high she has ever known. Everything is better. Each cigarette, each drink, punching out at work. Even Joey, something of a wild child, is suddenly an angel. It’s almost as if he knows who his real father is, although Rick—of course!—continues to be the superdutiful dad, coming by every other weekend and Wednesday nights. God, Rita would love to tell him the truth, just to wipe that superior look off his face, but she doesn’t want to say good-bye to his checks.
Besides, Rick’s visits seem to be the only thing that rouses Mickey out of her permanent sulk. Suddenly, nothing makes that girl happy. Take the school thing. She hates her current school, Rock Glen. She was excited about the transfer to a new district when Rita first told her. Then Rita told Rock Glen that Mickey has a medical condition and wouldn’t be able to attend the last three weeks. She now lives too far away to walk to the bus stop, and who’s going to drive her there at 7:30 A.M. every day? Not Rita. Besides, no one learns anything the last three weeks of school. You think a girl