The Debt Collector (16 page)

“You know if the sun would come out, I might not be so depressed.”

“The sun doesn't come out at this time of night except in Iceland.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Honey, Keaton isn't worth being depressed over. It was years ago, and he always kind of got on my nerves.”

“It's not him. It's just … Sam, do you ever stop and say to yourself, hey, I can't do this anymore?”

“No. When I talk to myself I usually say stuff like, hey, don't eat that, you pig, save some for somebody else. Listen, Sonora, you don't want this Daniels guy. Even though, as I understood it, you guys had totally great sex and true love, that right?”

It was the order in which men looked at things, and Sonora stayed quiet.

“The thing is, he gets all upset, because his wife—who he's in the middle of divorcing anyhow, for Christ's sake—gets murdered by the same chick who is stalking him and who killed his brother, also your brother, so it's not like he's the only one who suffered. So then he's all mixed up, and doesn't know what he wants or how he feels, and he's got all this weird guilt. I mean, please.”

“These are the kinds of things that upset people, Sam.”

“The guy's a whiner. A whiner and a waffler. Aren't you the one who said you'd had enough wafflers and that one too many waffles might just put you off the whole idea of breakfast?”

“When did I say that?”

“A couple months ago when you dumped the Jerk. You were running on adrenaline then.” He grinned at her. “Being married ain't perfect either.”

They eyed each other like every other single-to-married friendship, looking over the fence to see who got the better deal.

“Hey, Sonora, that's the exit.”

“It's not the third one.”

“It's the
right
one, so please the hell take it.”

30

Sonora turned left from the main road onto a limited-access highway that looped down and around prefab sheet-metal buildings that were new and hopeful, a self-made low-end industrial park. At the top of a hill she saw a sign that said
KATE'S DELI
. Not a bad idea. Entrepreneurs had to eat.

“There it is,” Sam said, squinting through the windshield. Streetlights reflected off the soaking asphalt. “They look closed.”

“I told you, Sam. It's a lunch place. Martha Brooks rents the kitchen at night and makes candy.”

“What kind of candy?”

“I don't know.”

“Maybe she'll give us a piece.”

Sonora turned left, aimed the Pathfinder up a steep concrete hill. “We're supposed to head around to the back.”

Metal storage units stood in rows behind the deli. Sonora frowned, some half-remembered bad association with storage units. She parked along the back next to a green metal Dumpster. She saw a truck unloading at a building at the end of the drive. The area had the hope and shiny shoestring aura that was a by-product of fledgling businesses. Here and there lights shone from building windows, but for the most part the place was shut down silent. Sonora could see why the grandson felt the need to ride shotgun. He went up in her estimation on that alone.

Sam rapped his knuckles on the aluminum frame of the screen door that Sonora hoped led to the back kitchen of the deli. They waited.

“Maybe we've got the wrong door.”

“Somebody's in there. I can see a light and I can hear music.”

They waited some more, listening to cars on the highway, the pat of rain on asphalt.

“Knock again, Sam.”

He knocked, harder this time. Looked at Sonora over his left shoulder. “Music's stopped.”

The door opened finally, no more than three inches. Sonora heard whispers, an adolescent male and a woman.

“It's okay, we're cops. Keaton Daniels sent us.” Sonora did not look at Sam. It felt strange, saying Keaton's name after all this time. But it worked like abracadabra.

The door opened wide and a woman bent forward, a tall, lanky boy at her back.

“Could I please see some ID?” she said softly. She had to open the screen door to take Sam's ID, and Sonora could see that her long white fingers were trembling.

She was a plain woman, with a broad and interesting face. Thick black hair, marbled with gray, combed straight back from the wide forehead and rolled loosely into a bun. Her eyes were black and kind. She was striking, with heavy arched brows and a cleft in the round chin.

“I'm Martha Brooks.” Her smile held more than a hint of apology. She wore a milk-and-flour-smudged apron tied around a plaid jumper, navy tights, and sensible shoes, black rubbery-looking Easy Spirits, designed more for comfort than pizzazz. Her only jewelry was a wide gold wedding ring and a watch on a thick leather band. “This is Davy, my grandson and my guardian angel.”

Sam offered a hand. Davy hesitated, as if he were unused to this social convention. But he shook hands with Sam, then stepped backward out of the doorway.

He wore a newish pair of Timberland boots on his large feet, jeans so baggy they evidently stayed up by magic, and an open flannel shirt layered over a short-sleeved T-shirt layered over a long-sleeved T-shirt. His hair, spiked heavily with gel, was pink on both sides, yellow and green in the middle, giving it an over-the-top, over-the-rainbow sort of effect. His only piercing was in one ear, fairly sedate for a boy sporting tutti-frutti hair. He had an awkward physical presence, all legs and elbows and height that he seemed unsure what to do with. He slouched sideways and told Sonora hello in a deep but barely audible monotonic mumble.

Martha Brooks beamed at him and could not have seemed prouder if she'd just announced his election to president of the universe. Nothing in the world more wonderful than a doting grandmother, Sonora thought.

Martha Brooks returned the ID. “Thank you so much for coming. Please, come on in.”

She led them through a narrow hallway, past a tiny bathroom cum storage area that held mops, buckets, rolls of paper towels, pots, pans, and industrial-size boxes of detergent. Both the woman and her grandson gave them looks over their shoulders, a mix of relief and awe. Sonora realized that they were both very afraid.

“We're making bourbon balls,” Martha Brooks said.

Sam's head came up. “What kind of bourbon do you use?”

She smiled at him over her shoulder. “Now, if you were from Kentucky like I am, you would know there is only one choice.”

Two minutes ago, Sonora thought, this woman was shaking like a lamb and afraid to open the door. Now she was flirting. “That old Delarosa magic,” she muttered to Sam. She knew he was after the candy.

“Maker's Mark,” said Sam, as if stating the obvious.

Brooks moved behind a huge rectangular island that dominated the large, square kitchen. She wiped her hands on the apron. “You're not.”

“Oh, yes, ma'am, western Kentucky, down around Owensboro. Born and bred.”

“
I'm
from Owensboro.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

He shook her hand over the table. “What the heck got you stranded in Ohio?”

“My
husband.
” She caught Sonora studying the cluttered cabinets. “That's all deli stuff, please don't blame it on me.”

Sonora nodded, somewhat in shock. Huge frozen rolls of ground beef had been left to drip and defrost overnight on countertops that showed pink and wet beneath. There were pies on the counter, apple and cherry, and large chocolate chip cookies, all from the Kroger deli. She had never realized pie ordered in a restaurant might have been bought from the grocery store down the road. She wondered what they charged for a slice.

“I think the chocolate's melted,” Davy said.

“Stir it for me, will you, hon'?” Brooks said.

Davy went to a double boiler that sizzled on a huge gas stove, pushed a rubber spatula round and round, lifting it up so that Sonora could see the thick coating of dark chocolate. Like any child, he could play and work at the same time.

“Do you mind if I work while we talk? I've got to make six hundred bourbon balls by Sunday.”

“Go right on ahead,” Sam said.

“There's a couple chairs,” she said, the hostess taking over from the businesswoman. “Davy, hon', go on and take that off the burner. We're not going to dip for a few minutes, and if it gets hard, we can just heat it back up. Use that glove, honey, don't get burned.”

Davy did as he was told, easing the double boiler off the burner with the air of one who had done this before. He took a small plate out of a cabinet and arranged about six misshapen chocolates in a spiral.

Martha Brooks took a huge stainless-steel bowl out from under an industrial-size mixer, tucked it into the crook of her left arm, and stirred with a large wooden spoon. “I hardly know where to start.”

“Don't be embarrassed, Grandmom. It could happen to anybody.” Davy offered the chocolates to Sonora, then Sam.

Martha Brooks, pink in the face, said, “Hon', don't give them the rejects, give them the pretty ones.”

For a teenage boy, Sonora thought Davy was doing just fine in the host department. She would never have dreamed of complaining.

“Not a chance,” Sam said. “These are wonderful.”

And they were. Huge candies, the size of small eggs, coated in dark chocolate, sweet white bourbon-zapped filling, and a pecan on top. Sonora's teeth ached with sweetness. She held the candy in her left hand, chocolate melting against her fingertips, flipped her notebook open, and rested it on the far edge of the island.

Sam swiveled from side to side in a desk chair, upholstered in black.

“It was that home invasion that scared us.”

Davy stood next to his grandmother, nodding. “We knew it was going to happen before it did.”

“Well, Davy, we didn't know exactly
what
. But we knew something, and we knew where.”

Davy began covering the island with sheets of waxed paper.

“How did you know?” Sonora asked.

Sam's look said listen first, ask questions later. She edged sideways so she didn't have to see him.

Martha Brooks stirred. “It was that man that called. The one from the check-cashing service.”

Sam raised one eyebrow at Sonora. “What check-cashing service?”

“That one over near Indian Hill, on Delaney Road.”

“You've seen their ads,” Davy said. “They're on TV, you know, we'll cash your check and give you the money till your pay comes in. They've got a whole bunch of those places up near Patterson Wright Air Force Base.”

And near Fort Knox, and in every town where people had trouble making ends meet, which was every town Sonora had ever heard of. She wondered how a woman like this, a woman whose simple clothes came from expensive shops, a woman whose grandson's jeans, shoes, and Abercrombie and Fitch T-shirts must have added up to a good four hundred dollars, wound up in the hands of people like this.

“I am so embarrassed,” Martha Brooks said.

“Just tell 'em, Grandmom. I'll tell 'em.”

Martha put the bowl on the table. “Please don't take me for the kind of person who does not pay her bills.”

“Cash flow is the biggest problem for any new business,” Davy said.

Martha patted his arm. “And mine is no exception. I should have gone to my husband for help—”

“No, you shouldn't've.” This from Davy, with the unbecoming belligerence that skimmed beneath the surface of the adolescent male.

“I've wanted to start my own candy business all of my life. Three years ago, I decided I had waited long enough. I had raised my kids and kept my home and now it was time for me. But nobody would take me seriously! My own children, who I put through college, mind you, into careers of their own, they treated me like some kind of a joke. They'd say, Mama and her candies, like it was funny to them.”

“They're always first in line to eat the candy,” Davy said. “Especially Aunt Vee.”

“Davy, hon'.” His instant obedience to the woman's gentle tone fascinated Sonora. “My husband was the worst—he gets so jealous of my time, though, Lord, we've been married over thirty-eight years. Anyhow, I just got tired of dealing with the whole kit and caboodle. I just did it by myself, and nobody knew, till one day I got in way over my head with an order of twelve hundred bourbon balls, and two orange cakes, and Davy here came to the rescue.”

“I skipped two days of school.”

“
Shush
, hon', now, that's our secret.” She opened the bottle of Maker's Mark, and Sonora sniffed the sweet crisp scent of bourbon. “I haven't let him skip any school days since. He'll be graduating with a B average.”

“Maybe.” Davy sounded dubious.

“You can do it, hon', you just need to apply yourself.” Martha stirred bourbon into the mix, then scooped filling into her fingers, rolling little white balls of candy insides and resting them on the waxed paper. “So anyhow. I ran into a problem where I had to buy supplies and couldn't pay till I got the order filled, so I cashed a check with those people. And my money came just like I knew it would, but they wouldn't let me pay it back.”

“Wouldn't
let you?
” Sam asked.

She shook her head. “No, sir, they would not. Have you ever heard anything like it?”

Sonora was afraid that she had.

“I told her they can't do that,” Davy said.

“And I told him that they did.”

Sonora frowned. “What exactly did they say?”

“Well, let me think.” Martha rolled a bourbon ball, then two more. “I went all the way out to Indian Hill because I didn't want to run into anybody I know. And the girl behind the counter, she was just so nice, that first day. Then some
man
starts calling me up, even before the money comes due, and says I've got to go in that day in person and make a payment on the interest. I tried to tell him that I wasn't supposed to pay yet, but he said he was going to get the sheriff in after me.” Her hands were shaking now as she rolled the candy.