Dipped, Stripped, and Dead (12 page)

“And he swore?” All-ex asked.

“I’m like that,” Ben said. “Very empathetic. I swear whenever Dyce feels like it.”

From my right side, Officer Wolfe cleared his throat. I was afraid he would say something. In fact, the man was almost guaranteed to say something. But before he could, E saved the day. Not that I in any way approve of what he did, of course.

He sprang up from behind me and ran full tilt toward the street. It took me two seconds to realize that he was stark naked, and a quick look to my side to realize he’d taken off his clothes and his Pull-Ups and left them in a bunch on the floor.

By that time, he was running hell-bent for leather up the sidewalk on Quicksilver, toward Fairfax—the largest, busiest artery in Goldport. At rush hour.

I took off after him before I was fully conscious of what I was doing. But I was almost a block behind E and behind Ben and Officer Wolfe, both of whom had reacted with remarkable promptness, and both of whom were now beating a mad pelter after the toddler.

As I ran behind them, my lungs were bursting, my legs felt like they would fall off, except that I must keep running, I must catch up with the crazy kid. And yet, at the same time, some part of my brain—the part that was rarely concerned with motherly things—noted that Officer Hotstuff was steadily gaining on Ben and muttered,
Aha, I knew he was a runner
.

Which was all very well for the cavewoman, but I, of course, was far more concerned with my son.

I saw him turn from Quicksilver onto Fairfax and start to run along Fairfax to the next intersection. The problem was that the next intersection was Pride Street, which had almost as much traffic on it as Fairfax. I braced as the little figure reached the corner, fully expecting him to step out into the stream of crosswise traffic.

However, against all expectations, he stopped.

To this day I think he stopped because he hadn’t actually expected to see traffic moving in front of him. On the other hand, Ben claims he stopped because at the corner of Pride and Fairfax, facing us, was the George. The George was a diner that had recently been refurbished and renamed. Part of the refurbishing was a big neon sign in the shape of a dragon flipping pancakes. Though we were still in full daylight, that side of the street was in shadow, and so the light flickered very brightly and it might have caught E’s eye.

For whatever reason, E did stop. And before he could start up again, Officer Wolfe caught him about the waist, saying, “Got you,” just in case E didn’t notice.

Ben caught up with them then, and stooped, drawing breath. I caught up with them after that, though frankly what I was doing was more like coughing and moaning and it seemed like I’d never breathe again. Ben helpfully tapped me on the back, as though by this means he could start up my breathing mechanism, even as he muttered, “I should run more.”

Officer Wolfe looked from one to the other of us, amused, which frankly made me want to tell him I’d like to see him holding a lighted quilt frame, and then we’d see how good he was. But of course, I said nothing of the kind. Instead, I noticed that E was holding on to him and saying delightedly, “Oh, holy fuck.”

Ben groaned. “Monkey, perhaps it would be a good idea to not display your linguistic ability quite so much?”

“A very good idea,” Officer Wolfe said as, more or less by common accord, we started walking back toward my place with me walking between the guys. “Don’t make me take you in for violating the language decency rules.”

E looked doubtful. “That means he locks you up,” Ben said, then coughed. “Then again, a locked room and all the bugs he can eat . . .”

“Stop it,” I said. “Just stop it. Oh, damn. All-ex is going to sue for custody.”

“Why? Because his son acted out when he saw his parents argue?” Officer Wolfe said. “I don’t think he’d have a case. Remember, I’m an officer of the law.”

“Good one, that,” Ben said, sounding very much like Officer Wolfe had gotten his job just to give us cover.

At the corner of the street I took E back from Officer Wolfe, who gave him to me without protest, and I walked slightly ahead of them, bracing. As I expected, All-ex hadn’t even left the front porch, which made perfect sense if you understood how All-ex’s mind worked. It wasn’t that he didn’t care what happened to our son. It was that, in his mind, E’s taking off running down the street naked was completely my fault, and therefore it was my responsibility to get him. Also, in his defense, he was wearing a suit and wingtips.

As I approached I could tell his lips were pursed in complete disapproval, and I walked a little faster, distancing myself from the men behind me, who seemed to be talking to each other anyway. I repressed a strong urge to sigh. Maybe I’d been right—maybe Officer Wolfe did play on the same team as Ben. Well, whatever. I told myself I didn’t care at all. At least—though it might be the first time in Ben’s life that he’d had anything to do with a person involved in one of the more masculine professions—he’d be an improvement on Les.

Mrs. All-ex had gotten little clothes from the back of the car. Not Pull-Ups, I noted, and what looked like a
miniature suit, exactly like the one All-ex was wearing. Wasn’t that just too precious? It was all it took to put the cap on what was fast becoming a truly foul mood.

I handed E to All-ex, watched E open his mouth, then glared at him and told him, “Don’t you dare.”

I don’t know what E had been about to say, though I suspected it was his newly acquired vocabulary. Instead, he looked confused and clamped his mouth shut.
Yeah, that’s right, Dyce. Make the kid hate you, too, why don’t you?

A part of me, the part that had a tendency to go maudlin and feel sorry for herself, was trying to say that perhaps it was better for everyone if E hated me. After all, I was clearly an unfit mother. But not even I could convince myself of that. I wasn’t an unfit mother. On the other hand, it surely looked like it, as I watched All-ex and his Michelle dress my little boy in stiff, all-too-proper clothes.

My eyes blinded by tears that I did not remember feeling forming, I ducked into the house and brought back a backpack, which I handed to Michelle. E waved at me and at Ben and Officer Wolfe and said, “Bah!”

Officer Wolfe looked amused, Ben waved, and All-ex said, giving the impression of speaking between clenched teeth, “I’ll bring him back on Tuesday.”

I said, “Good,” and that was about that.

Except, of course, it wasn’t. Officer Wolfe and Ben stood side by side on the front porch. I wanted to tell them to go off and do something, but I didn’t know exactly what to say, and besides, even if Ben was in the middle of an argument with Les, surely he couldn’t just throw him over like that. I confessed to not being privy to the inner workings of Ben’s emotional life, but I was fairly sure he wasn’t that shallow.

I watched All-ex drive away, and pointedly ignored Ben and Officer Wolfe, but I couldn’t quite shut the door in their faces and before I could retreat into the house,
Officer Wolfe was there, clearing his throat. “I was wondering,” he said, “if I could invite you to have coffee with me or something, and we could . . . well, I’d like to talk to you about what you saw . . . see if perhaps you could give us any insight.”

“Insight?” I asked, completely confused. It wasn’t so much that I didn’t understand what he was saying. It was more like I’d forgotten my command of the English language. A confusion of thoughts went through my mind, from the shock of the attack on a table and a stuffed animal—but who the heck attacked tables and stuffed animals?—to the fact All-ex was going to try to get custody, to the fact that Ben and Officer Wolfe seemed to have hit it off, and it wasn’t fair. It just wasn’t. It might be a cliché to say that all good men were either married or gay, but damn it, that seemed to be the way it played out. Except, of course, that All-ex was married, not gay, and he wasn’t very good. But that only made me more confused. I wiped my dripping nose on my sleeve and caught Ben’s disapproving glare. “What type of insight?”

“Well,” he said. “We’ve found that the body was . . . that is, that either the dead person was killed, or the corpse was immersed after death, in a lye vat.”

“A lye . . . as in a refinishing vat?” I said.

“Exactly,” Officer Wolfe said. “And I remembered you said you refinished furniture.”

Oh. Of course, it would all come around to Dyce being suspect number one. Who would ever doubt it? Only, this time I almost had proof—as far as one could prove a negative—that it hadn’t been me. After all, an operation the size of mine simply couldn’t afford any type of vat, lye or otherwise. “I don’t have a lye vat,” I said. “That’s usually the really big refinishing places. You know, the ones that do architectural components and the like. At best, with all the goodwill in the world, I could have dipped her leg in a lye bucket.”

Officer Wolfe’s lips twitched, which was weird, because I was sure I hadn’t said anything funny. “I didn’t think you’d done it,” he said. “This is not an official inquiry. I just thought because you refinish furniture, you might know about other places that refinish furniture here in town, and you might be able to tell me where to start looking.”

“Uh . . . I don’t think I know any more than you could find from looking in the phone book,” I said, even as I caught Ben giving me such a disbelieving look that I wanted to ask him what was wrong with him. I was fairly sure my nose wasn’t painted red, which was the only thing that would justify those eyes open wide in shock and the head shaking slowly in disapproval.

But Officer Wolfe clearly had comprehension problems. He only smiled wider at me and said, “Humor me. May I pick you up for dinner in a couple of hours? I have some errands I need to run, but I would love to take you to dinner afterward.”

I opened my mouth to say no, but Ben looked so frantic that all I could do was swallow and say, “If you think it will be any help. But you don’t need to take me to dinner.”

Ben looked like his eyes would explode out of his head, like the eyes of a cartoon character in an old-fashioned reel. His lips were pursed, and he was clearly trying to tell me something without making a sound. I had no idea what it could be other than,
Help, there’s steam climbing up inside my head
.

“I’d like to,” Officer Wolfe said, and I wondered if Ben had told him I lived on pancakes and that he should improve my diet. Give him ten minutes with Officer Hotstuff, and they’d probably cut off my supply of pancakes and of colorants and preservatives forever.

“Oh, all right,” I said.

“Good.” He smiled. “At seven, then.” And he left, at a trot, to the car he’d parked at the corner.

He had barely shut the door to his car—a small red car of Asian make—when Ben crossed his arms on his chest and said, “What are you trying to do, woman?”

“What?” I realized that my hair had come loose during my run, and I removed the elastic and started to pull it all back into a ponytail. “You shouldn’t have told him to buy me dinner, you know? It’s not like I’m a famine victim.”

“Told him . . . ? What?” he asked in turn. “I didn’t tell him to buy you anything. Clearly the man wants to take you out.”

“Why?”

Ben threw his arms out in a gesture of exasperation. “How do I know? Some men like women. Search me if I know why.” He shook his head at me. “And clearly some men like you. You’ve been married. You figure out what he wants.”

“Don’t be stupid,” I said. “You were very cozy with Officer Hotstuff.”

“Oh, don’t I wish. Well, no. Actually I don’t. He’s not my type. Nice, but not my type. Yeah, he’s Officer
Hotstuff
, but the only reason we were talking is that you were walking ahead of us and to talk to you, we’d have needed to scream. What do you think—” His phone rang, and he fished in his pocket for it.

“Hello,” he said. And then went very still. “Oh,” he said, after a while. And then, “I’ll come as soon as possible.”

He hung up, and all humor was gone from his expression. He looked pale and tense and distraught. “Dyce, can you drive me home? There was a . . . fire in my place and the fire department was called. I . . . uh. I need to go assess the damage. Les . . . Les isn’t there.”

CHAPTER 10

Creative Destruction

There were no comments on my sudden speeding
up, no comments on my slamming on the brakes at the intersections, not even the ghost of a flinch as I tore across two lanes of traffic at the last minute to pull into the visitors’ parking area of his building and slam, more or less willy-nilly, into a parking space.

No, I don’t normally drive that badly, but I do drive horribly when I’m perturbed. And frankly, seeing Ben so silent gave me the screaming willies.

He got out of the car as soon as I stopped, and didn’t wait for me. There was a fire truck parked in the middle of the parking lot and they were doing something with hoses and ladders, but Ben didn’t even give them a second look, nor the police car beside them. Instead, he hurried toward the door to the building. I followed.