The Debt Collector (15 page)

Gillane looked at him over his shoulder. “It's just Benadryl, prescription strength. And only one a night, Sonora, as small as you are. You won't need much, and you don't want to start taking any of the serious stuff.” Gillane wandered into the kitchen, literally sniffing around. “What you cooking? Hey, how's the horse?”

Keaton was staring.

“I bought a horse,” Sonora said. “Hell-Z-Poppin.”

“You what?”

“A horse.”

“You bought a horse?”

Gillane opened the cabinets till he found wineglasses. “Clos du Bois Pinot Noir 1996. Whoever you are, can I get you a glass? Good stuff.”

“Sure. Keaton Daniels, by the way.”

Gillane served. “No need to introduce me, Sonora.” He turned and held out a hand. “Gillane.”

Sonora liked it that he didn't push the doctor bit.

“I'm a physician at Jewish, work in the ER.”

Sonora rolled her eyes.

“You speak English like a native,” Gillane told Keaton. “I can't hear your accent at all, and I've got a pretty good ear.”

“Those of us over in Mount Adams have learned to blend in.”

Gillane frowned.

“It's not him,” Sonora said. “He's not the Jerk.”

Gillane gave her a look. “You mean this is
another
one?”

It was at that precise moment that Clampett streaked by, moving like a young dog, hot on the trail of three desperate mice.

28

Gillane was clearly enjoying himself. Sonora was not. Neither was Keaton, who was holding one end of the couch very high off the ground to expose the mice who had taken refuge beneath it. Clampett, hot on their scent, had them cornered, and he laid down, tail wagging.

“Can you please get your dog out from under there before I drop this thing?” Keaton did not sound happy. Sonora knew the couch was heavy.

“
Clampett
. Heel.”

Clampett exercised his ability to perform selective doggie hearing. Either that or he was ignoring her.

“Clampett!” Sonora grabbed the dog's collar and dragged him into the bathroom and shut the door. Clampett yelped and scrabbled at the door.

“He's going to mar the paint!” Keaton yelled.

“Oh shut up,” Sonora said.

“What was that?” Gillane's voice, angelic.

“Nothing. How are the—” Sonora walked back into the living room, saw Gillane on his stomach after the mice, and both men turning to look at her feet as the three tiny brown rodents ran to her for sanctuary. “Dammit, no! Why are they coming to me!”

“I'll get them,” Gillane said.

“Don't hurt them!” Sonora, holding a dish towel, draped it over the top of the mice and scooped them up in the cloth. “Open the front door, quick, they're hopping around!”

Gillane opened the door and Sonora ran out like a freight train. She went straight for her neighbor's yard and laid the dish towel gently in the grass. The mice wiggled out but showed no inclination to run for the woods.

Sonora squatted down and looked at them. “Don't come back. Find another home. If you come back, I'll let the dog get you.” She reached for the dish towel, changed her mind, and headed back to the house empty-handed.

Gillane was sitting on the couch, wineglass in hand, and Keaton stood over the fireplace, arm resting on the mantel like he was posing for
Town & Country
magazine.

Gillane stopped mid-sentence, something about his car speakers, and grinned at Sonora. “What did you do with them?”

“I let them go.”

“They'll just run around back and come in again,” Keaton told her.

“She's probably hoping they'll go into the neighbor's house.”

“Well, what am I supposed to do?” Sonora said. “They ran to me for help, am I supposed to just kill them?”

Gillane looked at Keaton. “This woman carries a gun. She probably kills people.”

“Not people who run to me for help.” Sonora took a sip of wine, mentally counting steaks. Plenty for everyone.

“Don't forget to let the dog out,” Gillane said. As if she could forget, with the ruckus Clampett was making.

“Please don't,” Keaton said.

Sonora, who had no intention of letting the dog loose, felt a prick of annoyance. “Gillane, why don't you start the grill and I'll cook.”

“I can't stay.” He stood up, set the half-full glass of wine over the fireplace. “Sonora, your Benadryl is in that cabinet of junk over the stove. I make no comment except to warn you that cold medication becomes inert three years after the expiration date. Bye, sweetie, don't get up, I'll let myself out. Call me if this doesn't do the trick.”

Sonora walked him to the door anyway, marring his exit line, mainly because she wanted another look at that car. He drove sedately away, waving, and she locked the door behind him and returned to the living room, where Keaton had taken Gillane's place on the couch.

She sat in the rocking chair. Her feet were cold, even in the new socks. “So,” she said, taking a sideways look at Keaton's face. He had lingered in her subconscious all this time, and she had not even been aware he was there, he was so much a part of the landscape of her mind.

She wanted to run upstairs and put on that red lipstick Sam liked. She laughed a little, nerves, the wine, and the man—and the realization that she had lost sleep and shed tears over that stupid Jerk, who was insignificant, and hey, one door closes and another door opens, isn't that what they say? She was glad to have this door open.

He smiled at her very gently. “Something funny?”

“Just glad to see you.” She had always known he would come back.

“Sonora, I can't stay for dinner, but thanks anyway.”

“No?” Had she asked him?

He put the wineglass down, rubbed his hands together. “Did I tell you I'm getting married?”

“Are you?” Her lips felt stiff, like she'd been standing on a corner in cold weather. “Congratulations. Who is she?”

“Another teacher …”

He kept talking but she did not listen. She got up and let Clampett out of the bathroom. The dog raced for Keaton, shed some hair, and drooled on the khaki knees, before returning loyally to Sonora, who was back in the rocking chair.

She rubbed Clampett's ears and he gave her a look of pure love that made her feel a little better, but not a lot.

“So why are you here?” Sonora asked, then realized from his startled look that he must have been mid-sentence. Pull yourself together, she thought.

“Trudy—”

“And Trudy would be?”

“My fiancée.”

“Ah.”

“She teaches high-school biology. She has this student, kind of a marginal kid, an alternative kid, not a regular attender, but he's doing better. Doesn't get along with his dad, so he's been spending a lot of time with his grandmother. He absolutely worships the woman, Trudy says. Anyway, he's been worried sick, and she got him to tell her—Trudy is so good with her kids, they really trust her.”

“She sounds wonderful, Keaton.”

He smiled. “Anyway, this boy says his grandmother has been threatened.”

“By who?”

“Some kind of bill collectors, I'm afraid the details are hazy.”

“Those people are shits, Keaton, but they can't hurt you.”

Sonora got the distinct impression from Keaton's look that Trudy would not have said “shits.” It hurt her feelings very much, that look. After all this time, she had not given up on him. She thought she had, but there they were, all those old feelings, astonishingly close to the surface, ready to destroy her peace of mind. Not that she had any peace of mind. Maybe the timing was good here. She was already feeling miserable. He couldn't destroy her happiness if she wasn't happy.

“Sonora? What do you think?”

She had missed something. “You say she's being threatened by bill collectors. Keaton, there are laws about that sort of thing. All kinds of consumer protections. Tell her not to answer the phone for a while.”

“She says they told her that something was going to happen at a house on Edrington Court, and she read about it in today's papers.”

Sonora leaned forward. “The hell. When?”

“Two days before it happened.”

“You're talking about—”

“Yeah, that home invasion. I knew it was your case. She's scared, Sonora.”

“I just bet.”

“Will you see her?”

“Give me the address.”

“Home or work?”

“Where is she
now
, Keaton? Don't fuck around.”

29

Sonora fed Clampett and locked up the house, checked her watch. Fifteen minutes to get to Sam's place, another thirty-five to find the grandmother. Her name was Martha, and she made candy and rented out a deli at night to fill her orders according to the specifics of the health department. Her grandson spent his nights with her at work, helping make the candy, doing homework. Right now he was standing guard.

Sonora had absolutely forbidden Keaton to pick up Trudy and come with her, and he left in a tight-lipped aura of annoyance. As if, by bringing her information, he was now allowed to be a part of the case. He had thanked her with a gratitude he did not feel but to which, to her way of thinking, she was definitely entitled. She did not bother to explain that people did not talk freely before an audience, particularly when it came to their finances, and that extra civilians wandering through an investigation were as welcome as head lice, and about as much trouble.

Not that she wasn't curious to get a look at the amazing Trudy, but that was personal and she was working here.

Sonora felt a prick of nerves as she drove away from her house. Everyone else was home, eating dinner, settling in. She seemed to live in an alternative universe.

It was there, though, in the back of her mind, the possibility that she could walk into that deli and find the kind of carnage she had seen at the Stinnets'. Could a massacre so brutal possibly be connected to collections gone incredibly bad? It didn't seem possible. And yet … the killers had left purses and cash but had gone through the mailbox, wiped the caller ID—phone and mail, the two avenues of collections. Sonora drove faster than usual and hoped Sam would be ready for her. She had that “been there, done that” feeling. Keaton had taken too long and talked too much.

Sam headed out the front door as she drove up, so he'd been looking for her. She'd always liked his house, an older home, a Cape Cod, with big windows and arched doorways and a sort of Beatrix Potter charm. Sand-colored shingles, front door and shutters freshly painted in that shade of blue Sonora thought of as Early American. Lots of older trees in the yard, many of them the flowering kind, and everything was trimmed, neat, and perfectly maintained.

Sonora just lately had such envy for the world of Beaver Cleaver, such longing to live in Mayberry RFD, such a need to come home to Aunt Bea, the smell of corn bread, a clean house.

She envied the men. She knew better. Knew that they came home to the same messy life she did, but in her mind she could not help picturing them walking into a clean house with dinner in the oven and children who were polite, respectful, and loving.

She knew that Mayberry RFD was a magical but mythical place. She knew that the men arrived on the doorstep ahead of or behind wives who had put in a long day already, that they'd all head out to Fazoli's, just like she did, and that she was having a thing, a mood, a phase, a bout of hopelessness that was infecting her life like the flu and that, like the flu, would pass. In her head she knew she would feel better in time, but in her heart she did not believe it.

Chart your glories, she told herself. She had made a good dent in the Visa bill, she had scrimped all summer, no vacation, grilling hot dogs, she had paid hard money—cash—for all the back-to-school expenses and also for that form of hell for moms otherwise known as Christmas.

What was the matter with her? She liked Christmas. Now she was kicking Christmas?

She looked at herself in the rearview mirror. “Get your ass up off the floor.”

Perspective arrived in the form of Sam's little girl, Annie, who ran out the front door to hug him good-bye. Sonora could not stop the automatic scrutiny of the child, two years younger than Heather. Did she look tired? Did she look thin? Sam lived with the threat of leukemia in retreat every day of his life.

Annie gave her a wave. Sonora smiled and waved back, and Sam settled in the seat beside her. It was her car, so she would drive.

“That's a pretty weird-looking smile you got on your face.”

“Hey, Sam, I'm trying to be cheerful.” She handed him the directions she'd scrawled on a paper towel. “Annie looks good.”

“Yep, that she does. What are you upset about, Sonora?”

“I'm not upset.”

“Oh yeah, you always talk through clenched teeth. Watch it, didn't you see the truck?”

“He shouldn't have been there.”

“It's not worth a head-on collision just to make a point. Do you know where you're going?”

“You've got the paper towel, you navigate.”

“This is a bunch of storage sheds.”

“Offices and small businesses is what Keaton told me.”

“Keaton Daniels? This is the same Keaton, this is your Keaton?”

“Not mine. He's engaged.”

“Ah.” They were silent. “That explains it.”

“Whatever. It's not that big of a deal, we broke up four years ago, Sam.”

“It's bad timing, after you just broke up with that Jerk. Take a left there, you're going to want the third exit.”

“What's the actual exit number?”

“I don't know, but it's the third one.”

“I need specifics, Sam.”

“I'll tell you when I get there.”

The windshield fogged and misted with the beginnings of a drizzle. They passed the backside of a Wal-Mart. Everything was gray and dreary and Sonora wanted spring.