Trailer Park Noir (13 page)

“Yes, I have,” Reznick said.

“It’s a helpless feeling, ain’t it?”

Reznick nodded.

“So is this feelin’ ya get when you know somethin’s real wrong, somethin’ outta your hands. Somethin’ bad.”

He liked to tell a story, this Mo Carey. Reznick wished he would pick things up a bit. “What was your somethin’ bad?” Reznick said.

“Melanie wasn’t out with her friends – she was out with ... well ... someone
else
.”

“Any idea who?”

“None.”

“You want me to find out?”

“Yeah, that’s right. On top of her goin’ out so much, she’s been buyin’ stuff. Just things now and then. But they ain’t all that cheap, you know? A dress here, some perfume there. Pricey stuff. And I don’t know where she’s gettin’ the money. Then I got to thinkin’ ... maybe she ain’t buyin’ ‘em. Maybe somebody’s buyin’ ‘em for her.”

They stopped talking to eat more coleslaw and beans and ribs. Then Carey said, “I don’t know where she goes, but I think her girlfriends do now. I think they’re all in on it, tryin’ to hide it from me.”

“You think she’s seeing another man?” Reznick said.

“What 
else
would she be doin’ at night?”

“You might be surprised how many bad things people can get up to at night without having affairs. You want me to follow her?”

“Yeah. I don’t know when she’ll go out again. Maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow night. She comes home from work, throws somethin’ together for my dinner, feeds the kid, and she’s gone. Usually by six-thirty, seven o’clock. Not every night, but often enough for it to be ... well, you know, outrageous. Here she is my wife, and I hardly see her anymore. I pick the baby up on my way home from work – she stays at my mom’s during the day – then go home. I get there ‘bout the same time she does. Before I know it, she’s gone again.”

“Give me your address in Happy Valley, tell me what kinda car she drives,” Reznick said. “I’ll wait for her to leave, then I’ll follow her. I’d also like a picture of her, if you have one.”

Carey stopped eating and wiped his hands and face on the paper towel. He took his wallet from his back pocket and started looking for a picture.

“What kind of work you do, Mo?”

“Construction. I’m workin’ on the new jailhouse in Redding.”

“Ah. And your wife?”

“She works in a dentist’s office.” He handed Reznick a picture of Mrs. Carey.

“What’s her name?” Reznick said.

“Alicia.”

Reznick nodded.

The woman in the picture was smiling, but she had the kind of face that would look angry and mean if she weren’t. She was a plain woman with straight, stringy, dirty-blonde hair. She had a broad face with small blue eyes perched above chubby round cheeks that became more pronounced when she smiled.

“Look,” Carey said. “Before we go any further, I gotta know – how much is this gonna cost me?”

Reznick told him his rates and how much he’d need up front.

“Okay, well, that’s a little steep for me. But I’ll handle it.”

“I assume you want me to start right away,” Reznick said.

“Tonight, if you can. Like I said, I don’t know if she’ll go out or not. If she ain’t gone by seven, she’s probably not goin’.”

“How has this affected your marriage?”

Carey shook his head. “We ain’t had sex in a long time. She’s never interested. That’s another thing makes me think she’s seein’ someone else. Hell, she don’t even seem that interested in our little girl. And she’s been actin’, I dunno, kinda ... kinda unstable lately. Mood swings, know what I mean? One minute, she’s fine. The next, she’s yellin’ and screamin’ at me, or even our daughter. Then, the next minute, she’s cryin’. Real weird. I been tellin’ her to see a doctor, but she won’t do it, says there’s nothin’ wrong with her.”

Carey had stopped eating and wiped his hands on the paper towel. He was getting himself worked up. His big hands closed and opened and closed into fists as he spoke.

Reznick decided to change the subject. “What’s your little girl’s name?”

“Brandy Michelle.” Carey smiled then and his hands relaxed. “Brandy Michelle Carey, and she’s the most beautiful thing you ever did see.”

“I’m sure she is. Does she notice her mother is gone so much?”

“Oh, hell, yeah. She’s always askin’, ‘Where’s Momma? Where’s Momma?’ And I don’t even know what to tell her.”

“And you’ve confronted your wife about this?”

“Oh, yeah. And it always turns into a fight. Next time I talk to her about it, I want to be able to show her pictures, tell her I know
exactly
what she’s up to, and she better stop it or I’m gonna get a divorce.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Reznick said. “You don’t want to start talking divorce until you know what she’s up to. Now, let’s get those things I need, and I can get started tonight.”

Eleven

The phone inside the trailer was chirping when Anna and Kendra got back from running errands. Anna hurriedly unlocked the door and went inside, a bag of groceries in one arm. She answered the phone while still holding the bag.

While Anna talked on the phone, Kendra stayed outside and played with her new pet – a tiny pale-tan Chihuahua she had named Dexter. The little dog had fallen in love with Kendra at once when she first held him in the animal shelter. Dexter had licked her face frantically and quivered and wiggled in her arms. The dog was not unlike Conan, the main difference being his lighter color.

Anna came to the door. “That was the temp agency,” she said. “I’ve got a job this afternoon, but I have to go right away. I’m going to get dressed, okay? You gather up whatever you want to take to Aunt Rose’s.”

Kendra stomped a foot. “But
Maah-meee
! You said the next time you had to go out, you’d leave me to take care of myself.”

“Not this time, honey, I’m in too big a hurry, okay?” She disappeared from the doorway.

Kendra bent down and scooped Dexter up in her arms. She went inside, where Mommy was unloading the groceries into the refrigerator.

“Mommy, you said you’d seriously consider it,” Kendra said. “And this is perfect! It’s daylight. You can go straight to work instead of taking me to Aunt Rose’s. And it’ll still be light when you get home, light for a long time. If you get off at five. Will you get off at five?”

“Actually, I get off at four-thirty,” Anna said. “You’ll miss Vacation Bible School.”

“It’s okay, I can miss a day.” Kendra put Dexter down on the floor and spread her arms dramatically. “And see? Four-thirty! It’s only a little after noon now. You wouldn’t be gone long at all! Just a few hours! I can take care of myself, Mommy.
Really
I can. I’ll prove it to you.”

Kendra chewed on her lower lip as she thought. She put a fist on her hip and shifted her weight from foot to foot. She could tell someone to keep an eye on Kendra for her that afternoon. But who? There was Debra Connor in the trailer across the way, but – no, that wouldn’t work, Debra visited her parents in a rest home most afternoons, she was probably already gone. She could ask Mrs. Snodgrass – if she hadn’t started drinking already. That was what she would do.

“You won’t go wandering off?” Kendra said.

“No!”

“No cooking. I don’t want you using the stove while I’m gone.”

Kendra shrugged. “Too hot to cook, anyway. I’ll have cereal, or a sandwich for lunch.”

“I put the cans of dog food under the sink. You might want to go ahead and feed Dexter, because we don’t know when he ate last.”

“Okay.”

Anna sighed as she stared at Kendra.

“Whatsa matter?” Kendra said.

“I don’t know. I guess ... well, I’ll worry about you.”

“Don’t worry about me, Mommy,” Kendra said with a big smile. “Dexter will take care of me. And Jesus and my guardian angel will watch over me.”

For a moment, Anna thought she was going to cry. She swallowed hard a few times until the feeling passed. “Well,” she said, “I should get cleaned up.” She turned and left the kitchen, and went down the hall to her bedroom.

Kendra picked up Dexter again. “Y’hear that, Dexter? Me’n you’ll have the whole house to ourselves this afternoon.”

The little dog seemed thrilled.

* * * *

Muriel Snodgrass came to the screen door about thirty or forty seconds after Anna rang the bell. She was a fat pasty-white woman with a big belly, but spindly legs that came like sticks out of the baggy blue shorts she wore. Her black-dyed hair – and a bad job, too – was a mess. She wore glasses with big square frames, a baggy sleeveless top speckled green and yellow and white. “Yeah?” she said. She held a glass of something on ice in her right hand. It was the kind of glass handed out at fast food chains to promote movies. This one had some kind of superhero on the side.

Anna hoped the glass did not contain liquor, not at this early hour. It looked like ice tea.

Somewhere in the house, a television played loudly.

“Hi, Mrs. Snodgrass,” she said, smiling.

“Hi. Keepin’ cool in this heat?”

“Barely. It’s miserably hot, isn’t it?”

“You got that right. What can I do for you?”

“Well,” Anna said, “you’ve met my daughter Kendra, haven’t you?”

“Sure. Real purty girl, too, she is.”

“Well, you know she’s a little slow.”

“Yeah. Shame, too.”

“I have to go to work, and I’m going to leave Kendra at home by herself for the first time this afternoon. Would you mind keeping an eye on her for me? I mean, just from a distance, you know? See if anybody shows up while I’m gone, or something.”

“You expectin’ someone?”

“No, no, I’m just ... “ She chuckled a brief, breathy chuckle. “I guess I’m just a nervous, worried mother.”

“Yeah, I unnerstand. I was that way with my kids, too. I devoted my whole life to ‘em. I
dropped
my life for ‘em, y’know? Now, do I hear from ‘em? Do they come see me? Do they call? Or even write me a e-mail? Nope. Not them. Too busy. Or they live too far away.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Anna said, trying to conceal her need to get away from Mrs. Snodgrass as soon as possible and get to work. The workers in the office at Redding Tractor and Lawn Mower needed a hand right away, and she did not want to make them wait any longer. “I
really
have to run, Mrs. Snodgrass, or I’d stay and chat.”

“Don’t worry, honey, I’ll keep an eye out for your little girl.”

“Thank you so much.” Anna turned and hurried back to the trailer.

She’d called Rose to ask her to drop in on Kendra while she was gone. But she’d gotten Rose’s answering machine. She’d called her cell phone, but it was turned off. Anna did not understand why Rose had a cell phone if she never turned it on.

Anna was dressed in a business-like blue-and-white suit and ready to go. She went inside and stood before Kendra, who was on the floor playing with Dexter with an old sock that had a knot tied in it.

“Sweetheart, I have to go,” Anna said. “Can you stand up for a second?”

Kendra got to her feet. “Don’t worry, Mommy. I’ll be fine.”

“I guess that’s my problem,” Anna whispered as she hugged Kendra. “I don’t like the idea that you don’t need me anymore.”

“Oh,
Mommy
,” Kendra said as she squeezed Anna. “I’ll
always
need you.”

They stood that way for a long moment, then Anna pulled away, pecked Kendra’s cheek, and said, “I’ve got to go.”

Out in the car, as she backed out of the carport, Anna noticed a man walking from the new trailer in unit five. He headed toward the Snodgrass house.

She stopped backing up for a moment, and watched him in the rearview mirror. There was something startlingly familiar about him. He had short dark hair, broad shoulders – he wasn’t that tall, but he was well built. And there was something about him ...
some
thing. She frowned as she watched him in the mirror and tried to place him, tried to figure out where she’d seen him before. But she could not.

Anna drove out of the trailer park and headed for work at Redding Tractor and Lawn Mower.

* * * *

Muriel Snodgrass heard another knock at her front door. It was really more of a rattle, because someone had knocked on the metal edge of the loose screen door. That made three so far today. What did all these people want all of a sudden?

The first had been Audrey Marsh from unit nineteen, wanting some sugar, because she was baking cookies and had run out of sugar and couldn’t run to the store because there were cookies in the oven. Muriel had invited her in and given her the sugar. Why she wanted to do any baking in such miserable heat was beyond Muriel.

Then it had been that woman with the beautiful retarded daughter.

So, who was it this time?