Flashpoint (15 page)

“So I pass by Miz Daniels's room on the way to give the Haley's flavored M-O to Mr. Remus, and I see her door's closed. Now that's odd, I'm thinking, because I like my people to keep the doors open, so I can just check on them and such. But it's closed, and I think I hear something, kind of a bird noise almost, then voices. So I go on and get Mr. Remus his Haley's, and I'm there awhile, 'cause he don't like that mint flavor, he likes the regular, and he can't make up his mind to take it. So finally, finally, I just say, well, now, Mr. Remus, I'll just leave it here while you make up your own mind.”

Something about the way she said “make up your own mind” made Sonora think of Sam, and she smiled, and Kaylene smiled back and kept on talking, and everything felt friendly in the room.

“So I just leave the little plastic cup on the dresser. I put it in little plastic cups just like they do at the hospital, because I don't cut corners, you know, like they do at some places. I do things right, though what they charge for them little cups is just nasty.” She nodded her head and blinked.

“Everything's gone up.” Sonora leaned back on the couch and uncurled her fist. Patience. Patience.

“Now when I go on out of Mr. Remus's room, I see Miz Daniels's door is open, and Miz Daniels is up on her walker, though you can see her laigs is bad and hurting her something nasty. And that little girl is leaving, but they don't hug or nothing. Now you would think, if she was a niece or something, she might give Miz Daniels a hug, and might check with me to see if Miz Daniels needed anything. But I tell you I saw right off something funny was up. Because Miz Daniels looks mad as can be, and her eyes are red, like, and the tears is just a-running down her cheeks.” Kaylene pressed her fingertips to her own cheeks, then cocked her head to one side and frowned.

Sonora waited expectantly.

“Sorry, I just thought I heard one of my people.”

“Was the girl upset?”

“No, she seemed kind of excited, like. Really, she seemed sort of like my dog when he's got that cat down the road in a corner.”

“Smiling?”

“No, don't think so, but smug, that's what I'd call it. That shyness was kind of gone, and she seemed pretty pleased. And I didn't get a nice feeling, looking at this girl. The feeling I got was nasty.”

Sonora made notes. She dug in the vinyl case and took out the sketch of Mark Daniels's killer. “Is this anything like her?”

Kaylene took the picture with eager hands.

“Well, I just don't know, it could be. My reading glasses are in the kitchen. Let me get those, so to get a better look.”

Sonora followed Keaton Daniels down the thinly carpeted corridor to an add-on that had obviously been built to accommodate Kaylene's “people.” The ceiling was low, and Keaton dwarfed the hallway. His footsteps were quiet, the whole house was oddly hushed, and Sonora realized that Daniels had different tennis shoes on—Nikes this time.

Kaylene Wheatly Barton had not been sure that the woman in the sketch was the same girl who had visited, but her description-tiny, shy, unsmiling—dovetailed with the impression Sonora had from the bar owner of Cujo's. Sonora did not like the feeling she got from this killer, as if Mark Daniels's death was just the starting point for what she had in mind.

Keaton stopped suddenly, and Sonora bumped into him.

“Sorry.” He put a hand on her arm, and Sonora was aware of the weight of it. He leaned down and spoke softly. “She's being difficult. I told her she has to talk to you, but I don't know.” He scratched the back of his head. “She used to be very normal, your all-American mom.”

Sonora touched his shoulder. “It'll be all right.” She moved around him and went into the tiny cubicle. “Mrs. Daniels?”

Aretha Daniels was on the tall side and had likely been slender most of her life. Her waistline had thickened, and her shoulders slumped forward, back rising in a hump that meant advanced osteoporosis. Her hair was dyed jet black, and she wore black-rimmed cat glasses with an old-lady chain.

She sat on the edge of a single bed that was made up with a worn green bedspread of cheap ridged cotton. There was a chair near the bed, plastic with a walnut veneer, harvest yellow padding, a waiting-room kind of chair. The walls were paneled with fake walnut, there was no window. A small table sat beside the bed, the surface overwhelmed by a stack of magazines—
Good Housekeeping, Ladies' Home Journal, Mature Health
. A box of Puffs blue tissues was half full, and a glass of water with lipstick stains on the rim sat on top of a magazine that featured the fresh, intelligent features of Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Three gray cartridges had been tucked into the tissue box for safekeeping. Gameboy cartridges. A book of crossword puzzles lay open on the bed, a dull-pointed pencil wedged in the gutter between the pages. Sonora smelled perfume—White Shoulders—and mentholyptus.

Aretha Daniels was hunched over a Gameboy, feet propped on the bottom rail of the bed. She sucked enthusiastically on a cough drop; Sonora saw it glisten on the edge of her tongue. Aretha Daniels's thumbs moved quickly.

“Fireball,” she muttered, her face mirroring the dull intensity that Sonora thought of as the video-game look.

Sonora recognized the recurrent bar of music that rolled forth from the handheld console. Super Mario.

“Mrs. Daniels, I'm Police Specialist Sonora Blair. I work homicide for the Cincinnati Police Department. I'm handling Mark's case.”

The woman glanced up. “Sonora? That's unusual.” She went back to the game.

Keaton sat on the bed beside his mother. Tension was apparent in the controlled way he put an arm around her shoulders. Very close to ignition, Sonora thought.

“Mother. Put the game on pause and talk to Detective Blair.”

Sonora winked at him, turned the chair backward, and straddled it, resting her chin on top. Aretha Daniels watched her out of the corner of one eye, and Sonora got the feeling she was annoyed by imagined disrespect. Good.

“Keaton tells me you're a schoolteacher.”

The woman rose slightly on the edge of the bed. “I
was
a schoolteacher. I haven't taught since my husband's death. My legs gave out on me.” She patted her knees and winced.

“Are you in pain? Should I ask Kaylene to get you something?”

“Young lady, I am in pain every minute of my life. I wish there
was
something you could get me.”

Keaton Daniels winced, but Sonora ignored him. As did his mother, who put the Gameboy down on the bed and gave Sonora a sideways suspicious look.

“All right, young lady, you want to discuss Mark. Very well. When are you going to catch his killer?”

“If I don't track her down this week, then we're talking months, years, or never.”

Mrs. Daniels's hand hovered over the Gameboy. She pulled it away and pursed her lips. “
Never
is not acceptable.”

“I don't like it either, so help me out. Because I think you talked to your son's murderer yesterday, and I want to know everything she said.”

Aretha Daniels made a choking noise. “That horrible little girl that came yesterday? It was her?”

The irritable mom-voice was gone. Aretha Daniels sounded cowed and old. Sonora turned her chair sideways and leaned toward her. Keaton moved close to her on the bed, and she put her hand over his.

Sonora's voice was gentle. “Tell me everything you remember.”

Aretha Daniels rubbed the top of Keaton's hand and took a breath. “She was Keaton's friend. That's what she said.”

Keaton's look was intense, guarded.

“She talked about Mark. No, that's not exactly right. She wanted to know how I felt about Mark's death. She actually asked me that. At the time I thought she was simply … awkward. Socially. But she kept at it, kept questioning me.”

“What kind of questions?”

“Well, like, wasn't it awful, how he died? Did I think he was in a lot of pain?” Aretha Daniels swallowed and clutched Keaton's arm. “Did I think about it, imagine it? Did I think he … think he …” The tears came suddenly, and Aretha Daniels sobbed.

Keaton pulled his mother close and slipped a wad of Puffs tissues out from under the Gameboy cartridges.

She blew her nose. “She wanted to know if I thought he had cried. If I thought he had
called
for me.”

Sonora felt the heat rise in her cheeks, felt the ulcer acknowledge the call to arms, her jaw clench as the anger flooded her senses with an intensity that seemed dangerous, at the very least to her stomach.

“And the whole time she was watching me. It's hard to explain. It was like she was hungry for what I had to say, but her eyes were … odd, somehow, the expression. And she never smiled. Not even at first when I said hello.”

Sonora knew that Aretha Daniels had been afraid and that the fear had shaken her, and hurt her, and that she would never admit it.

“Then what happened?”

“I told her to leave.”

Keaton's jaw was clenched. “I want you to come and stay with me awhile, Mom.”

“Keaton, no, I won't. I will never be a burden on you.”

“You aren't a burden and I want you to come.”

But he didn't, and all three of them knew it.

“Did she say anything else?”

Aretha Daniels shrugged, lifted a hand, let it fall.

“Did she ask you about Keaton?”

“At first, Keaton was all she talked about. I thought maybe she …” She turned to her son. “I thought she was some kind of a girlfriend. That maybe she was the reason you and Ashley—”

“No, Mother.” Repressively.

Aretha Daniels looked across the room at Sonora, her gaze an accusation of a sort. “You have children.”

“Two,” Sonora said.

“Ages?”

“Six, my daughter. A son thirteen.”

“Thirteen? No wonder you look tired. Up late worrying, I suppose. Keep him in hand, it will pass.”

Sonora smiled but felt oddly comforted. “I hope so. There seems to be a problem with algebra.”

“At that age, it will be a lack of organization and study. Likely as not he hasn't been turning in homework. Be firm with him, Detective.”

“Yes ma'am.”

Aretha Daniels looked at her sharply, as if sniffing for sarcasm. She patted Keaton's cheek, then pushed him away gently.

“You should go, it's a long drive home for you.”

“Mom, come on. Come home with me awhile.”

Aretha Daniels picked up the Gameboy and stared at the tiny screen. She patted Keaton's knee. “Be careful, son.”

18

Sonora went from the porch steps into the muddy yard and took a deep breath. Keaton Daniels walked beside her, steps quick, hands deep in his pockets.

“Is there any place to eat around here?” Sonora asked.

“Probably something in town. Dairy Queen at the next exit.”

“I've got to feed my ulcer. Meet me at the Dairy Queen, we need to talk.”

He nodded, started to say something. Sonora waved him on. She wanted out and away. She did not like leaving Aretha Daniels behind in this farm-hell. She got her engine started first, gravel sputtering beneath the wheels of the Taurus. Keaton wasn't behind her when she turned onto the narrow two-lane road, and she looked back over her shoulder. Daniels was hunched forward over the steering wheel of his car, head bowed. Sonora grimaced and hit the accelerator, heading down the winding road toward the blessed interstate. She kept an eye on the rearview mirror until Keaton's blue LeBaron showed up behind.

By the time Sonora pulled into the crumbling asphalt parking lot of the Dairy Queen, she was queasy and tired of the car smell. She parked next to the inevitable pickup, and Keaton pulled up beside her. She dug her cellular phone put of her purse.

Yes, the kids were home. Yes, the kids were safe. Yes, their grandmother, Baba, was coming to pick them up. Heather asked when she was coming home, sounding wistful. Tim asked if she had her gun and if it was loaded, and told her to be careful.

Sonora tucked the phone into her purse next to the gun and went into the Dairy Queen. Keaton was inside, studying the menu. He moved close to the cash register. Ordered fries, a barbecue, a Sprite.

“For here,” Sonora told the girl behind the counter. “Chili dog, onion rings, and a Coke. Yeah, I want chili on it. That's usually implied with a chili dog, right?”

Keaton looked at her. “Be nice, Detective, this is a small town.”

The food came on red plastic trays. It was late afternoon, well past the lunchtime crush, and they had their pick of sticky tables.

“Over here.” Keaton took a wad of napkins and wiped a frosting of salt from a corner table.

A fern in a basket over Sonora's head dropped a leaf on the seat beside her.

Keaton Daniels stabbed a french fry into a white paper cup full of catsup. “Nice place to leave your mother, isn't it?”

“Why is she there?”

“Her choice. Kaylene is supposedly a cousin of some cousin two hundred times removed. And my mother … my mother is nuts.”

“I take it you weren't consulted?”

“My mother made the decision so she wouldn't be a burden. Pays her own way, except Kaylene calls me on the sly every month or so needing money for what she calls ‘Mama's extras.'”

“Do you pay?”

Keaton looked at her.

“I'm a cop, I'm nosy.”

“Sometimes.” He took a large bite of barbecue. “My mother didn't used to be like this. The woman who limited my television when I was a kid now has carpal tunnel from playing video games.”

Sonora looked at the chili dog, wondered how the ulcer would handle it, toyed with an onion ring.

“What was your mother like? When you were a kid?”

Keaton stacked three french fries and ate them in a wedge, sans catsup. “She was a teacher. Where I lived, most of the mothers were stay-at-homes. Not like now.”