Repo Madness (13 page)

“You're … That's pretty cool,” Kermit told me. Oddly, he reached his hand out, and I shook it.

“So, look into what it would take. You're good at stuff like that,” I told him. “I'm not.”

“There are travel aggregators,” he replied.

“Sure,” I agreed.

“So, can I ask you a question? Something
you're
good at?” he queried somewhat pensively.

“Fire away,” I said, waiting for Alan to come up with a list of things I was good at, like forgetting to bathe, which was a false accusation anyway.

“It's about my uncle,” Kermit continued.

I gazed back somberly. “Okay.”

“The investigation about Milt? Well, there's some kind of delay with the autopsy. The coroner who would normally execute it is out of town, and the next person in line had a death in her family. So it hasn't happened yet.”

“And all of your family thinks he was buried right away.” I nodded.

“Sure, but that's not it. I mean, it's not like they are going to find out my prevarication. No, I got a call. The guy from the prosecutorial office says that considering Milt's cancer, and no signs it was foul play, they're willing to just call it an accident instead of deliberation.”

“So if you agree to no autopsy, they'll put accidental death on the certificate, instead of suicide,” I translated.

“They're trying to save the family's feelings,”
Alan observed.

“They're trying to save money by talking you into cutting corners,” I told Kermit. I thought of Sheriff Porterfield, warning me he was going to put me out of business. What was happening to this place, anyway? “You know what? I say screw them. Maybe Milt had a heart attack. You want an autopsy to find out what happened, they should do one.”

“Well, there's more complexity to it than that.”

I nodded for him to go on.

“See, if the coroner rules it was suicide, then one of Uncle Milt's policies won't pay anything, and the other two won't pay the double indemnity for an accident. It's a lot of money.”

“Then why do it?”
Alan wanted to know.

“But how could they know that for sure? Your uncle probably just wanted to listen to the radio and think and have a couple of nips, and he fell asleep. Carbon monoxide hits pretty quickly, I think. No one can prove it wasn't an accident just by doing an autopsy.”

Kermit's vision cleared. “Yeah, you're right.”

“So what good will this do?”
Alan demanded.
“He should leave it alone.”

“Did the prosecutor mention anything about the insurance?” I asked shrewdly.

“Yeah, he was the one who said I should see what the policies promulgated about suicide,” Kermit admitted. “And there's something else. They found a bottle of vodka with him, but Uncle Milt hated vodka. So what was it doing there? Could an autopsy find out what he'd been drinking?”

“I highly doubt it,”
Alan observed.

“Maybe,” I replied, just to disagree with the voice in my head. “You should tell the prosecutor that the coroner should look into it.”

“Yeah. Thanks. Becky said you'd know what to do,” Kermit told me.

“Becky said that?” I asked, pleased.

“Yeah.”

“Well, let me know that they find out. Hey, where's my dog? I want him to see the new truck.”

“He's at your house. I drove him over,” Kermit replied.

“It's, like, three blocks. You couldn't walk him?”

Kermit jammed his hands into his pockets, looking apologetic. “He didn't want to.”

That sounded like Jake. “Okay, mind if I take him for a little spin in the new toy?”

Kermit slapped the side of the truck. “Have fun.”

“You're really taking the dog for a ride? You think Jake will honestly care?”
Alan challenged as I drove down the narrow alley.

“He's going to be amazed out of his mind. Besides, I know he would like to see Katie.”

“You're going to drive over to see Katie? Without calling first?”

“Sure.”

*   *   *

Jake actually did seem excited by the new truck, sitting up and sniffing at the dashboard and the CD player. I cranked up the seat warmers to keep my ass thawed so I could roll down his window and let him ride nose to the wind, his eyes full of the joy of being a dog. I punched on the radio and listened to a political commentary channel, a nonstop flood of one man talking, like having Alan Lottner on a speaker. Eventually I shut it off.

I used my repo skills to track down my fiancée. She'd said her new place was close to work, so I started at her office and cruised up and down until I found a small house with her car in the driveway.

There was another car parked right behind it.

I pulled over and sat in the street, contemplating. Who would be visiting Katie after eight o'clock at night?

“This isn't necessarily what it looks like,”
Alan told me in a soothing voice. Which meant he was drawing the same conclusion.

“You're right,” I said, my voice strained. I cleared my throat. “Probably a girlfriend.”

“Right. We should just go.”

The front door opened, and a man emerged, silhouetted by the interior lights.

He was a big fleshy man: Dwight Timms, Katie's former boyfriend before she upgraded to me. He was not in uniform, but he wasn't dressed for a date, either. He wore jeans and a heavy, bulky coat, looking like a balloon in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. I wondered if he had his gun with him, and if he did, if he could get to it through all that insulation before I punched his nose to the back of his head.

I was breathing shallowly as I watched him walk down the carefully shoveled walkway to his car. My hands were clenching the steering wheel. I noted Katie didn't kiss him good-bye. They didn't hug. Yet my heart was hammering inside my chest.

Timms caught sight of my truck and froze. I could not see his face—it was enshrouded by the harsh shadow from the streetlight—and I doubted he could see mine, either. But he could certainly read
KRAMER RECOVERY
on the side of the truck. We stared at each other, like two faceless phantoms in the complete silence of the snowy night.

“Don't do it,”
Alan urged me.
“It's what he wants, Ruddy. He's hoping you'll come after him. Then you'll be in jail and you won't see Katie for years and you'll say good-bye to everything. Please. Just sit. Okay? If Katie looks out and sees you fighting, you'll lose her forever.
”

The last time I checked, I thought Alan was more or less in
favor
of me losing Katie forever, but I didn't mention this. I unflexed my hands on the steering wheel, letting my air out in a long slow sigh.

“Okay,” I murmured, though my pulse was still racing.

After standing there for what seemed five minutes, whatever passed for a brain inside Timms's head began to spark up and advise him he was out in four-degree air. He gave a derisive toss of his head and got into his car and backed out, flipping on his brights as he drove past me. I stared stonily ahead, my pupils whittled down to slits, and waited long enough for my vision to clear before I opened my truck door.

“Come on, Jake.”

The peephole darkened as Katie eclipsed it from the other side, and then she opened the door and, thank God, she had a welcoming smile on her face, though most of her joy seemed reserved for the dog. “Jake!” she greeted.

She held the door for us. I stamped my feet and looked around the tiny little living room. A wood stove was cooking in the corner. Jake quickly decided the couch would be the softest place and jumped up to lie down before we got any crazy ideas about going back outside.

“It's even smaller than it looks from outside,”
Alan murmured, ever the real estate agent.

I was heartened to see that Katie wasn't dressed for a date. She had on sweat pants and an old shapeless sweater, and no makeup. “I didn't … How did you find my place?” she asked.

“It came furnished?” I responded. The couch was ratty, there was a card table by the small kitchen, and a single wooden chair offered the only place to sit that wouldn't mean sharing space with a dog. I resisted the temptation to poke my head down the hall to see what the bedroom looked like.

“Yes, well, and I got some stuff from the Rainbow Shoppe. Ruddy, what's going on? You seem…” She shrugged.

“I saw Deputy Dumbbell.”

“Sorry?”

“Dwight Timms. The worm farmer turned sheriff's deputy.”

Katie's eyes turned cool. “So?” she challenged softly.

“I don't know, Katie, you tell me. Is that what
on a break
means?”

“Oh God.” She looked thoroughly disgusted.

“You need to back off,”
Alan commanded sternly.

“I don't know what you think, but Dwight is my … This is his place. He's my landlord. I'm renting from him. He came over because the oven wasn't working; it wouldn't light.”

“So what are the terms of this rental?” I asked.

“What are you implying?”
Alan hissed furiously.

The anger flared in her eyes and then turned to something like sadness. She shook her head mournfully.

“That question is completely inappropriate,” she told me. “Dwight lists the rental with our company, and we manage it. My boss is waiving the fee so I can afford it. Why are you doing this? I don't want to fight. I was actually glad to see you when I opened the door. I was thinking of driving to the Bear, but it got too late, so I texted you.”

“I just wasn't prepared to see your old boyfriend walk out of your house.”

Sometimes in a conversation there's a point where it can go either way, and that's where I sensed we were. Worse, I knew we were at the precipice because I had forced us there. Instead of listening to Alan, I was heeding the needs of something base and unpleasant inside me.

“Well, I sure was,” she finally said.

I stared at her in noncomprehension. “What do you mean?”

“I mean
I
was ready to see him walk out of my house. There is nothing going on between me and
Dwight,
Ruddy. God, give me some credit. That was a long time ago. He wanted to talk and asked if I had any wine, and I told him I needed him to leave. A little Dwight goes a long way, if you want to know the truth.”

“Thank God for that,”
Alan breathed.

I thought about Deputy Dumbbell's girth wrapped up in that big parka. “Is there even such thing as ‘a little Dwight'?” I asked her. What I should do, I realized, was cross the room, take her in my arms, kiss her, and accompany her into the bedroom.

“Don't try it,”
Alan advised me.
“Give her time, Ruddy. She just wants to laugh with you; that's all she's ready for right now.”

I didn't know how he knew what I was thinking, but I could see his point. I glanced over at Jake, who was sprawled on the couch. “I think my dog plans to sleep right there tonight.”

Jake rolled his eyes at me, insulted I would drag him into the conversation.

“Jake, you silly dog, you can't sleep here tonight. I have to work tomorrow,” Katie said.

Okay, I might be a big dumb repo man, but even I got that her statement was for me, not my dog.

“Okay, Jake. Let's go home.”

Jake squeezed his eyes shut, feigning deafness.

Inspired, I told Katie that Kermit was my new boss and that I'd just negotiated a new pay package with him, and asked her if I could take her out to dinner, someplace nice, to celebrate my good fortune. She brightened and said sure, and we set a date for the next night, ignoring Alan's indignation.
“You didn't negotiate; you just accepted his offer,”
he advised me.

Unlike what happened with Timms, she did kiss me good night, a light peck on the lips, though she reserved most of her love for Jake. In a way I was grateful—before I did anything more passionate, I needed to have Alan take a nap.

My fiancée and I were living separately, but we had a date, she'd kissed me, and she loved my dog. I had no idea what was going on, but it seemed like I had a shot.

*   *   *

I woke up with Schaumburg on my mind, but I really didn't feel like talking to him, so I went to the library instead, jumping on the computer and looking for stories about Lisa Marie Walker. Alan woke up around the time I had finished with my notes, which I put on old-fashioned paper.

“What are we doing?”

I looked around carefully. The only other people were all the way across the room behind their desk. As long as I spoke quietly, I could converse.

“I'm going to let the
we
pass, though I've been doing all the work while you snoozed. I'm reading about the accident. I never did that, really, and since I pleaded guilty, there wasn't much to learn at the trial.”

“So?”

“The search for Lisa Marie started that night. The stoners who pulled me out of the water said I was screaming some girl's name. The police moved pretty quickly, and they had divers out before dawn. Meanwhile, her parents had called to report her missing, and it was easy to connect her to the party I'd gone to. They woke up my friends, and they said the last they'd seen, Lisa Marie and I were getting into a car together. By the time I came to in the hospital the next afternoon, they figured she was in the car with me but that she had gotten out and must have drowned.”

“So that's the message. She drowned, just not in the car. That lines up with what that girl Amy Jo said.”

“I don't think that's it at all. The clear implication was that I was not at fault. She said, ‘I know you think you killed her.' See? So something
else
happened to Lisa Marie.”