Girl Most Likely

Three

Karen had been gone six months now, but it felt like forever, and yesterday.

In a gray CUBS sweatshirt, jeans, and Reeboks, Keith Larson was in the kitchen of his daughter’s home, at the counter, preparing things for the evening meal he’d promised her. The fifty-eight-year-old retired police detective, who had only moved in with his daughter Krista yesterday, had already made a trip back across the river to Dubuque. To get the makings of frikadeller, he’d needed to go to Cremer’s Superette, because their fresh meat was the best in the area. Right now he was hand-grinding half a pound of veal and another of pork with an onion.

The kitchen was large, almost ridiculously so; but then the whole house seemed overlarge and always had. Dating to the 1890s, high on Quality Hill overlooking the downtown, the white-trimmed, gray-frame two-story with its quaintly covered porch had been the family home for Karen and her parents. Not only had Karen grown up here, but so had Krista, who like her mother had been an only child.

The place, with its lovely old woodwork, hardwood floors, and ornate wood-burning fireplaces, retained much of its historic look down to the leaded-and-stained-glass windows, pocket doors, and walk-up attic. The latter Keith thought could be remodeled into a good study or home office, but with so much space here — and just his daughter and himself to rattle around in it — that seemed excessive.

He’d met Krista’s mother at the University of Dubuque in 1981. He was studying criminal justice; Karen was an elementary education major. The joke was, he was such a big kid and she such a sneaky little devil that they made a good fit. And she was on the small side, five three, and brunette, while he was a sturdy six-footer, with a head of blond hair worthy of a surfer here in farm country.

That hair now was thin as hell on top, and he had a slight gut that his exercise bike was not interested in doing anything about — of course he wasn’t terribly interested in the bike, either. All his life he’d been told he almost resembled Paul Newman, thanks to those sky-blue eyes of his; but the emphasis was frequently on the “almost.”

Karen had never looked like anybody but Karen, and that had been fine with him. Her big brown eyes, her dark curly hair, which she’d worn so big in the ’80s, had seemed just right to him. She wasn’t skinny, either, which he liked, but she’d fought with her weight until the cancer had brought it back down, last year. Ironic that for a few months she had been the slender girl he’d fallen for, as the real woman she’d become slipped away.

He’d lived in this house before, for the first dozen years of their marriage, after Karen’s parents retired to Florida, generously making the young couple a wedding gift of the family home. For those first twelve years, Keith had driven to his job in Dubuque, starting in uniform, rising to detective. But when he landed the demanding Chief of Detectives role six years ago — making even a half-hour commute impractical — they’d gone looking on the other side of the river and found a perfect little ’50s-era ranch-style on Marion Street.

They’d handed this big old place over to Krista, who’d still been living there — their daughter had commuted to Dubuque University to study criminal justice, much as Keith had, years before — when Krista landed the job as clerk-dispatcher on the Galena PD.

He stirred breadcrumbs into the meat-and-onion mixture. He wondered why the tag sale hadn’t hurt more. Of course he hadn’t been present for it — just walked away and later took the check from the auction house gal. But he hadn’t wanted most of the furniture and none of Karen’s clothing or jewelry, even the wedding rings. After he had Krista take whatever she wanted, all he held on to of theirs were the photos, a few framed, others in photo albums Karen put together.

Of his things, Keith packed up his clothes, a cardboard box of DVDs (mostly westerns — cop movies just irritated him), and another box of some books. When they’d moved to Dubuque, not so long ago really, he’d stored a lot of things here at the old homestead, as they archly referred to it. Now, after seeing what Krista had done with some of that stuff, unboxing it and salting it around to make him feel at home, he wished he’d gotten rid of that crap in the first place.

The move — moving in here — had been sudden.

Since Karen’s passing — no, he wouldn’t let himself say it that way...

Since the goddamn cancer killed Karen, he hadn’t once taken the twenty-minute trip to Galena to see his daughter. She was busy with that demanding job of hers (which made him damn proud), so they had started having Sunday supper together on Marion Street. He would cook, and she would pop corn and they’d watch one of the westerns, or maybe sports if some event they both had an interest in was on.

Usually, neither father nor daughter was talkative. They both had Danish reticence in the blood. He liked to think they were so comfortable together that they didn’t have to say much. But sometimes he feared the opposite was true.

Fathers and offspring who were much alike often had a hard go of it, he’d found.

Anyway, the Sunday evening before last, he’d been in the wood-paneled den of the ranch-style, selecting a DVD from the shelves of the stand under the small flat-screen TV. He was on his knees doing that when she came in, all chipper, with a big bowl of popcorn and two smaller empty ones; she was in dark blue leggings, a lighter blue tunic-style sweatshirt, and her bare feet. She put the popcorn and bowls down on the end table separating the old sofa from his recliner, then she went back out again, returning less than two minutes later with bottles of the Carlsberg Export beer they both loved.

He selected Rio Bravo and put the disc in the machine. Then he turned to go to his recliner, where the remote waited with his popcorn and beer on the end table. He stood staring at the recliner, as if the dark fake leather of it were fascinating.

“Pop?” she asked.

She always called him that. One of the few detective series he got a kick out of was the corny old Charlie Chan flicks, which he also had on DVD. Ever since they watched those together, she had (like Charlie Chan’s various sons) called him “Pop” (and on rare occasions, “Papa”).

She sat forward, the popcorn bowl in her lap. “Something wrong, Pop?”

“I was just thinking,” he said absently, still looking at the chair. “About the last time I sat down here.”

“Why’s that?”

“No reason. Well. Last time I sat there... which was just this afternoon... never mind.”

Now she leaned forward so far that the popcorn spilled a little. “What is it, Pop?”

He laughed. “I must have sat there an hour.”

“Watching something or what?”

“No. No. It’s just... it’s a long time to have your gun in your mouth.”

They hadn’t watched Rio Bravo. They didn’t even eat their popcorn. They did stay in the den, but on the couch. He did something he hadn’t recalled ever doing in front of his daughter, even at the funeral. He wept.

“This house,” he said, after a while. “It’s full of her. I thought that would be a good thing. But it’s not.”

“You had some wonderful years here.”

“Yes, but all the memories, all the ghosts, are of her last six months.”

Her voice took on a firmness that sounded spookily like her mother’s, in certain situations, like when he was being an ass. “You’re moving in with me.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“This isn’t a discussion, Papa. You’re moving in with me. This house will sell fast, and you know how much room I have. It’s lonely in that big old place.”

“I’d just be underfoot.”

“I said it was big, didn’t I? You can reclaim your study. I never moved out of my room. Your and Mom’s bedroom is waiting.”

She paused, maybe thinking that was the wrong thing to say.

“Or maybe the guest room,” he said, already capitulating. “But those aren’t the kind of memories, ghosts that would bother me. Everything in that house was positive. Mostly things were positive here. But those last six months...”

He began to weep again and hated himself for it. Not as long this time. And her arm around him did feel good.

She talked about hiring a moving van for any furniture he wanted to keep, and that was when he suggested a tag sale. He knew some reliable people who could throw that together quick. He’d bring his own things with him, and rent a U-Haul if need be. He would move in a week from today. Would he be all right till then? Yes.

“How can I know that for sure?” she asked. She was holding his hand.

“Because I’m not going to do anything stupid.”

“What... what stopped you this afternoon?”

“Really why?”

“Really why.”

He shrugged. “Didn’t want to take the chance that you’d be the one who found me. Wouldn’t do that to you, honey. And pills? I might wind up a vegetable, and you don’t need that in your life.”

“There are other ways.”

“I’m squeamish about blood.”

“You? No you aren’t.”

“I’m squeamish about my blood.”

She smiled and squeezed his hand.

“And,” he said, “one time I found a guy who hanged himself. That didn’t look like any fun.”

She dropped her head and laughed a little. He could always make her laugh. A dark Danish sense of humor was something else they shared.

So it had all gone well. And now he was cooking his first meal in this house, and it would be a good one. He beat some milk, slowly, into the bowl of meat mixture, then egg, salt, and pepper. When the mixture got puffy, he shaped the mix into ovals. For now, he put the meatballs into the fridge.

That was when he noticed the bottles of Coors Light in with the Carlsberg.

He frowned at the interlopers. What were they doing in there, bringing down the property values like that? His eyes searched the shelves — was that yogurt? Dannon, which as a child his daughter had more than once described as “sweet snot,” an opinion he knew she still held. What was that vegetable — was that... oh my God, was that kale?

His first thought was that Krista had lost her mind. But he knew she had a boyfriend, that would-be writer what’s-his-name, who even back in his daughter’s high school days Keith considered a nincompoop. But she had a right to a boyfriend, even that one, and Jerry (that was it) was just the kind of person who would like kale and yogurt.

“Maybe even kale-flavored yogurt,” he said out loud. “Washed down with a Coors Light.”

Keith shrugged to himself. So she invited Jerry over, sometimes. No harm, no foul.

Nonetheless, he checked the medicine cabinet.

Hair gel? Head & Shoulders? Krista never suffered a flake of dandruff in her life. Hugo Boss cologne? Axe deodorant for men? Musk fragrance!

He shut the medicine cabinet door and frowned at his own image, which didn’t remind him one little bit of Paul Newman.

He forced his frown into submission, made his mouth nearly smile. She’s twenty-eight, he thought. She has a guy in her life. Who stays over sometimes. She’s an adult. She has a right.

The smile never quite taking, he sat on the lid of the toilet seat, leaning forward, hands folded, as if in prayer. He was trying to settle his mind down when he saw the stack of magazines on the little stand that was otherwise taken up by folded towels. He took the stack in hand and started flipping through: Women’s Health; Vogue; Cosmopolitan; Elle; WomenPolice magazine; Penthouse.

His eyes widened. What was wrong with this picture?

Next he found himself in the garage, where he spread out a black garbage bag on its cement floor, then snapped the rubber kitchen gloves on before dumping the garbage can onto the waiting plastic. He ignored the food items and other garbage and focused on paper items, specifically mail. Most of it required unwadding. He found the name Jerome Ward, at this address, on various billing envelopes.

When Krista came home, just before five, he greeted her with a smile.

“Too soon to eat, honey?” he asked her.

“No! I’m famished. Smells wonderful!”

He already had the red cabbage going, the boiling potatoes, too — not that the latter was all that aromatic.

He said, “I’ll start the frikadeller then.”

“Oh, good! My favorite!”

She went off to change her clothes and he fried the meatballs in hot butter till they were brown all over. He was ready to serve her up when she returned in gray sweats, her comfy at-home clothes of choice this time of year. She ooohed and aaahed as he set before her the plate of meatballs, red cabbage, and small boiled red potatoes. He got himself a plate, then a Carlsberg, before opening and setting a Coors Light in front of her.

She didn’t notice at first, digging into her food. He got started eating, too. The table was a big wooden farmhouse affair that could serve a party of eight; they sat at the end nearest the kitchen area. Finally she reached, rather absently, for the beer, and when she tasted it, her eyes got big and she held the bottle out in front of her, like somebody in a cartoon who accidentally drank from an ink bottle.

She stopped eating. Set the excuse for a beer down. Said, “All right, so Jerry stays over sometimes. Used to stay over. We broke up, if you want to know.”

He must have wanted to know or he wouldn’t have behaved this way. He felt slightly guilty — slightly — as he said, “If I’m going to stay, we aren’t going to lie to each other.”

“Okay.”

“How long was he living here?”

“Living here?”

“We aren’t going to lie, sweetheart.”

She looked at the beer, still in her hand, and shivered. “Yuck. Who says he lived here?”

“The refrigerator. The medicine cabinet. The skin magazine. And the trash, with discarded mail to him at this address.”

His blue eyes in her face goggled at him. “Jesus. Do you ever stop being a detective?”

“No.”

She got up and went to the sink and began pouring the Coors Light down the drain. “He did live here awhile. I’m of age.”

“I noticed.”

“Well, you might have known, if you’d ever set foot in here after... you know.”

“I know.”

She got herself a can of Diet Coke from the fridge. Popped the top. Said, “We did break up. He stopped by the station today, supposedly to interview me, but... it was something else. Kind of really ending it.”

“Must have been embarrassing having that happen at work.”

She sat, shrugged. “Not terribly... Can we just eat now?”

“Sure.”

They ate.

He cleared the table, gathered his pots and pans, put leftovers in containers and into the fridge. She was loading up the dishwasher.

He went to her. “You should call him. I can move in with Matt or maybe Leo till I can find someplace. I won’t have you disrupting your life over me. I won’t have it.”

She looked back at him, still crouched to load dishes in. “Pop, it’s done. He and I... we were heading that way anyway.”

“You’re not lying to me?”

“No. No more lies, you said. Starting with that.”

“You were thinking of breaking it off anyway?”

“Yes.”

“Will you tell me one thing?”

She stood and faced him. “Okay.”

“Was it the kale?”

She started to laugh and fell into his arms. He was patting her back when she said, “That and the yogurt.”