The Accident

THREE

I put the truck back into drive. A short distance later I hit the blinker and turned down Harborside Drive. “Which house is Emily’s again?”

I should have been able to spot it. Emily’s mother, Ann Slocum, and Sheila had met six or seven years ago when they’d both signed up the girls for an infants’ swim class. They traded tales of being new mothers as they struggled to get their girls in and out of their bathing suits, and had kept in touch since. Because we lived not too far from each other, the girls ended up in the same class at school.

Chauffeuring Kelly back and forth to Emily’s house had usually been a duty that fell to Sheila, so I didn’t instantly know which place was the Slocums’.

“That one,” Kelly said, pointing.

Okay, I knew this house. I’d dropped Kelly here before. A one-story, built mid-sixties, would be my guess. It could have been a nice place if it got some attention. Some of the eaves were sagging, the shingles looked to be nearing the end of their lifespan, and a few of the bricks near the top of the chimney were crumbling from moisture getting into them. The Slocums weren’t alone in putting off household repairs. These days, with money tight, people were letting things go until they couldn’t be ignored any longer, and sometimes even then they weren’t dealing with them. A leaky roof could be fixed with a pail a lot cheaper than new shingles.

Ann Slocum’s husband, Darren, was living on a cop’s salary, which wasn’t huge, and probably even less than it used to be since the town started clamping down on overtime. Ann had lost her job in the circulation department at the New Haven paper sixteen months ago. Even though she’d found some other ways to make a living, I could imagine money was tight.

For about a year, she’d been running these so-called “purse parties” where women could buy imitation designer bags for a fraction of the price of the real ones. Sheila had turned our place over to Ann one night not long ago to run one. It was quite an event, like one of those Tupperware things-or at least what I imagine one of those Tupperware things are like.

Twenty women invaded the house. Sally, from work, came, as well as Doug Pinder’s wife, Betsy. I was particularly surprised when Sheila’s mother, Fiona, showed up, with her husband Marcus in tow. Fiona could afford a genuine Louis Vuitton if she wanted one, and I couldn’t see her carrying around a bag that wasn’t the real deal. But Sheila, worried that Ann would get a poor turnout, had begged her mother to come. It was Marcus who finally persuaded Fiona to make the effort.

“Be sociable,” he’d apparently told her. “You don’t have to actually buy one. Show up and support your daughter.”

I hated to be cynical, but I couldn’t help wondering whether his motives had little to do with making his stepdaughter happy. An event like this, you had to figure there’d be a lot of women there, and Marcus liked to check out the ladies.

Marcus and Fiona got to our place first, and when the women started arriving, he made a point of greeting them as they came through the door, introducing himself, offering to get each a glass of wine, making sure they all had a place to sit as they began to drool over leather and fake labels. His antics appeared to embarrass Fiona. “Stop making a fool of yourself,” she’d snapped, taking him aside at one point.

Once Ann’s sales pitch got under way and Marcus and I had retreated to the back deck with a couple of beers, he said, somewhat defensively, “Don’t worry, I’m still madly in love with your mother-in-law. I just like women.” He smiled. “And I think they like me.”

“Yeah,” I replied. “You’re a stud muffin.”

Ann did pretty well that night. Made a couple of thousand dollars-even knockoff purses could run several hundred bucks-and for hosting the event, Sheila got to pick any bag she wanted.

Even if the Slocums couldn’t afford repairs to their house, purses and policing were paying well enough for Ann to drive a three-year-old Beemer sedan, and Darren had a Dodge Ram pickup that gleamed red. Only the pickup was in the driveway as we approached the house.

“Is Emily having any other friends sleep over?” I asked Kelly.

“Nope. Just me.”

We stopped at the curb.

“You okay?” I asked her.

“I’m okay.”

“I’ll walk you to the door.”

“Dad, you don’t have-”

“Come on.”

Kelly dragged her backpack, adopting a condemned-prisoner gait as we approached the house.

“Don’t worry,” I said. There was a For Sale sign with a phone number stuck to the inside back window of Darren Slocum’s pickup. “It’ll be fun, once you’ve ditched your dad.”

I was about to ring the bell when I heard a car pull in to the driveway. It was Ann in her Beemer. When she got out of the car, she grabbed a Walgreens bag.

“Hey!” she called, more to Kelly than me. “I just got some snacks for your sleepover.” Then she laid her eyes on me. “Hi, Glen.” Only two words, but they were laced with sympathy.

“Ann.”

The front door opened. It was Emily, her blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail just like Kelly’s. She must have spotted us through the window. She squealed at the sight of Kelly, who barely had time to mumble a farewell to me as she and her friend ran off.

“So much for the tearful goodbye,” I said to Ann.

She smiled, walking past me and taking me by the arm into the front hall.

“Thanks for taking Kelly tonight,” I said. “She’s very excited.”

“It’s no trouble.”

Ann Slocum was in her mid-thirties, petite, with short black hair. Stylish jeans, a blue satiny T and matching bracelets. An outfit that looked simple enough but probably set her back more than what a new Makita rotary hammer, with variable speed and all the accessories, would have cost me. She had nice muscle tone in the arms, a flat stomach beneath her small breasts. She looked like someone who worked out, but I recalled Sheila saying once that Ann had dropped her gym membership. I supposed one could do that sort of thing from home. Ann gave off something, in the way she carried herself, the way she tilted her head when she looked at you, the way you knew she knew you were looking at her when she walked away, that was like a scent. She was the kind of woman who, if you didn’t keep your head about you, you might find yourself wanting to do something stupid with.

I wasn’t stupid.

Darren Slocum entered from the dining room. Trim, about a head taller than Ann and about the same age, but with prematurely gray hair. His high cheekbones and deep-set eyes gave him an intimidating look, which probably came in handy when he pulled people over for exceeding the Milford speed limits. He thrust out a hand. His shake was strong, just this side of painful, establishing dominance. But building houses gave you a pretty good grip, too, and I was ready for him, putting my palm firmly into his and giving as good as I got, the son of a bitch.

“Hey,” he said. “How’s it going.”

“Jesus, Darren, dumb question,” Ann said, wincing and looking apologetically at me.

Her husband shot her a look. “Excuse me. It’s just something you say.”

I gave my head a “Don’t worry about it” shake. But Ann wasn’t ready to let it go. “You should think before you talk,” she said.

Oh what fun. I’d arrived in the middle of a spat. Trying to smooth things over, I said, “This is really good for Kelly. She’s had no one to hang out with but me for two weeks, and I haven’t exactly been a barrel of laughs.”

Ann said, “Emily’s been at us and at us to have a sleepover and she finally wore us down. Maybe it’ll be good for everyone.”

The girls could be heard in the kitchen, giggling and fussing about. I heard Kelly shout, “Pizza, yes!” Darren, distracted, looked off in the direction of the noise.

“We’ll take good care of her,” Ann said, then, to her husband, “won’t we, Darren?”

He snapped his head around. “Hmm?”

“I said we’ll take good care of her.”

“Yeah, of course,” he said. “Sure.”

I said, “I see you’re selling your truck.”

Darren brightened. “You interested?”

“I’m not really in the market right-”

“I can give you a hell of a deal on it. It’s got the three-ten horsepower engine and the eight-foot bed, perfect for a guy like you. Make me an offer.”

I shook my head. I didn’t need a new truck. I wasn’t even going to get anything for Sheila’s totaled Subaru. Because the accident was her fault, the insurance company wasn’t going to cover it. “Sorry,” I said. “What time should I pick Kelly up?”

Ann and Darren exchanged glances. Ann, her hand on the door, said, “Why don’t we have her call you? You know how silly they can get. If they don’t get to sleep in good time, they won’t exactly be up at the crack of dawn, will they?”

When I pulled the truck in to my driveway, Joan Mueller was looking out her front window from next door. A moment later, she came outside, stood on the front step. A boy about four years old peered out from behind her leg. Not hers. Joan and Ely had had no children. This little guy would be one of her charges.

“Hey, Glen,” she called as I stepped out of the cab.

“Joan,” I said, planning to head straight into the house.

“How are things?” she asked.

“Managing,” I said. It would have been polite to ask how things were with her, but I didn’t want to get into a conversation.

“Do you have a second?” she asked.

You can’t always get what you want. I walked across the lawn, glanced down at the boy and smiled.

“You know Mr. Garber, don’t you, Carlson? He’s a nice man.” The boy hid another moment behind her leg, then ran back into the house. “He’s my last pickup,” Joan explained to me. “Expecting his dad along any minute. Everyone else has been by. Just Carlson’s dad and that’s it, then I’ll have my life back for the weekend!” A nervous laugh. “Most people, they seem to pick up their kids early on a Friday, they get off ahead of schedule, but not Mr. Bain-Carlson’s dad-he works right to the end of the day, Friday or not, you know?”

Joan had a way of rambling on nervously. All the more reason why I had hoped to avoid a chat.

“You’re looking well,” I said, and it was half true. Joan Mueller was a good-looking woman. Early thirties, brown hair pulled back into a ponytail. Her jeans and T-shirt fit her like a second skin, and she filled them well. If anything, she was a little too skinny. Since her husband’s death, and starting an off-the-books child-care operation in her home, she’d lost probably twenty pounds. Nervous energy, anxiety, not to mention chasing after four or five children.

She blushed, tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “Well, you know, I’m on the move all the time, right? You think you’ve got them all settled down in front of the tube or doing some crafts and then one wanders off and you get that one and then another one’s on the go-I swear it’s like kittens in a basket, you know?”

I was only a couple of feet away from her and was pretty sure I could smell liquor on her breath.

“Was there something I can help you with?”

“I-well, um-I’ve got a tap in the kitchen that won’t stop dripping. You know, maybe sometime, if you had a second, but I know you’re busy and all-”

“Maybe on the weekend,” I said. “When I have a minute.” Over the years, especially during other periods when work was tight, I’d done small jobs, unrelated to the company, for our neighbors. I’d finished off the Muellers’ basement on my own a few years back over a month, working every Saturday and Sunday.

“Oh sure, I understand, I don’t want to cut in on your free time, Glen, I totally understand that.”

“Okay, then,” I said, smiled, and turned to leave.

“So how’s Kelly getting along? I haven’t had her here, after school, since, you know.” I had the feeling Joan Mueller did not want me to go.

“I’ve been picking her up every day after school,” I said. “And she’s at a sleepover with a friend tonight.”

“Oh,” Joan said. “So you’re on your own tonight, then.”

I nodded but said nothing. I didn’t know whether Joan was sending out a signal or not. It didn’t seem possible. Her husband had been dead for some time, but I’d lost Sheila only sixteen days ago.

“Listen, I-”

“Oh, look,” Joan interrupted with forced excitement as a faded red Ford Explorer whipped into her driveway. “That’s Carlson’s dad. You really should meet him. Carlson! Your dad’s here!”

I had no interest in meeting the man, but didn’t feel I could vanish now. The father, a lean, wiry man who may have been in a suit but whose hair was too long and straggly for him to have a bank job, came up the walk. He had a kind of slow swagger. Nothing over the top. The kind of thing I’d noticed in bikers-I’d had one or two work part-time for me over the years-and I wondered whether this guy was a weekend warrior. He looked me up and down, just enough to let me know he’d done it.

Carlson slipped out the door, didn’t stop to greet his father and headed straight for the SUV.

“Carl, I wanted you to meet Glen Garber,” Joan said. “Glen, this is Carl Bain.”

Interesting, I thought. Instead of “Carl Jr.” his kid was named Carlson. I offered a hand and he took it. His eyes darted from Joan to me. “Nice to meet you,” he said.

“Glen’s a contractor,” Joan told him. “Has his own company. He lives right next door.” She pointed to my house. “In that house right there.”

Carl Bain nodded. “See you Monday,” he said to Joan, and went back to his Explorer.

Joan waved a little too enthusiastically as he drove off. Then she turned to me and said, “Thank you for that.”

“For what?”

“I just feel safer having you next door.”

She gave me a friendly look that seemed to go beyond neighborly as she retreated into the house.