Knockdown: A Home Repair Is Homicide Mystery (7 page)

Quiet in the dining room, the back parlor, and the laundry. By the glow of the night-light, the kitchen appliances gleamed and the floor shone with Bella’s final mopping, which she’d done very cheerfully under the influence of those appletinis.

“You know the drill, right?” Jake asked Prill, patting the dog’s smooth neck.

“Mmph,” said Prill darkly, lying down by the back door. Her powerful body made a solid thump when it landed, and there was a purposeful gleam in the dog’s eye, too, Jake thought.

It made her feel better, and so did the silence outside when she peered again out the front window. Downtown on Water Street it was most likely a much livelier matter even at this late hour, but here there was only the hoot of a distant foghorn.

Then nothing. Nothing else, and no one at all.

She hoped.

RUNNING AWAY FROM HER HOUSE IN THE DARK, HE COULDN’T
believe what he’d done.
Stupid …

He could have been caught. But he hadn’t been able to resist the temptation to creep right up to her window and …

God, she’d been right there. One solid punch to that flimsy window screen and he could’ve—

He hadn’t thought of the streetlight behind him, or how it would cast a shadow to betray him. It worried him that after all his planning, his enthusiasm had still gotten the better of him.

But the exhilaration was worth it. At the corner he slowed, trying hard to look like just another Eastport holiday reveler.

Water Street on a holiday night was like something out of his dreams. People wandered around with smiles on their faces as if nothing could hurt them. Music from boom boxes and children’s rides, shouts of roving teenagers, and pungent food smells came from all directions.

At the tempting aromas, his stomach growled ferociously, and suddenly another rebellious impulse seized him: Why shouldn’t he eat? Why did he have to follow his mother’s rules, even now when she was dead?

Before he could stop himself, he’d walked right up to one of the tents and bought himself a bratwurst on a roll, and a can of soda. The sausage, freshly grilled and still spitting hot juices from the fire, sent up a spicy perfume that made him tremble.

Angrily he shoved the food into his mouth, unable to resist his hunger. He finished it quickly even though it was hot, then moved on to a table full of handmade chocolates.

He bought a large box of assorted ones and forced himself to resist tearing it open before he’d paid for it. Then, ripping at the transparent wrapping paper and fumbling at the cardboard, he grabbed a handful of sweet chunks and devoured them, and quickly felt the sugar hit his bloodstream.

Instantly a rush of shame hit him. What in God’s name had he been thinking? That stuff could make him sick; it was filthy; who knew who or what might’ve been touching it, contaminating it in unspeakable ways.…

Shut up, shut UP
, he shrieked silently at the voice in his head. Her voice, her never-ending harping and criticizing …

People moved innocently on the street around him. He wanted to kill them all. How dare they be so happy, so
free
?

But in the nick of time he caught himself. He wasn’t here to express old resentments. He was on a mission.

An important one. A sudden revulsion for the remaining candy struck him; he dropped the rest of the box in a nearby trash can. The bratwurst hadn’t been the best idea, either, he realized.

But it was not a disaster, he told himself firmly, even as his hands began making those uncontrollable washing movements again. He would do better next time, and clean himself thoroughly once he got back to the vacant house.

He was here to pursue his plan, and no minor lapse—a hot burp from the spicy sausage soured his throat, making him grimace—could be allowed to stop him.

And eventually, under this onslaught of calming self-talk, he felt his disgust subside, his nausea ease. Enough, anyway, to try going on with what he’d been doing.

As far ahead as he could see, more attractions beckoned, some mere card tables with awnings, others elaborate commercial affairs with trailers and flashing lights. He strolled toward the blare of canned music from a Guess Your Weight and Age tent.

A Native American man gripping a carved wooden walking stick sat on a chair in front of the tent. An aging German shepherd lazed at the man’s side while a couple of small boys up way past their bedtimes crouched by the animal.

The old man looked up. His eyes were the same dark color as the chocolate taste still in Steven’s mouth. The man sat still. Only his gnarled hand tightened around the carved walking stick as his gaze met Steven’s.

Sensing its master’s alertness, the dog rose, sending the little boys scurrying back. The man spoke a few muttered words to the animal in a language Steven didn’t know.

In response the dog sat, fixing Steven with its flat stare as he went
by. He felt its eyes on his back. Its attention gave him a creepy feeling, as if it were seeing
into
him. But:

Forget them. They’re not what you’re here for
.

And what could they do to him, anyway? Nothing. He moved on, resisting the urge to hurry. He had no need to be afraid.

He was the one who should be giving people a creepy feeling.
If they only knew …

He pressed past a cluster of teenage boys in baggy shorts and faded T-shirts, then some older, less innocent-looking young men dressed in black denim jackets, black jeans, and scuffed boots.

Eastport’s wild bunch
, he thought as they sullenly shifted to let him pass. One made a remark he couldn’t hear; the others laughed meanly at it. A bottle crashed by his feet.

He kept his head up. But they’d seen the momentary hunching of his shoulders, as if in anticipation of a blow.

They’d frightened him on purpose, tormented him because they could. And for that, one of them had to die.

The thought flew into his mind unbidden, but the instant it took shape he knew it was true. It was the real reason he’d come out here tonight, when it would’ve been much safer and simpler to stay in, and now he allowed himself to admit it.

Once his dad had died—
murdered, my father was murdered
—he’d never been allowed to attend festivals, street fairs, or any celebratory event where the common people gathered.

“Germs,” his mother would pronounce in a disgusted voice. “They’re dripping with ger-r-rms.”

Listening, he’d practically been able to see the organisms, slimy and putrid, that might infest him at a public event. Then he would look around at his own safe, surgically clean home, filled with his own good clean toys and books and the many other solitary amusements his mother bought for him, and he’d decide on his own that he didn’t want to go.

“Oh, that’s all right, Mother,” he would flute in his good-little-boy voice. “I’d rather stay here with you.”

Which of course had been her real plan all along. But his presence here wasn’t to make up for it. No, he was here to—

Another bottle crashed near his shoes; beer foam splashed his slacks. “Hey, faggot.”

Fury made his face hot. That was always it, the worst they could think of. What they were most frightened of themselves.

And they should be frightened, though not of that. He stopped. “What?” he said into the air that was suddenly sparking with possibilities.

Nearby, an impromptu dance party had begun, musicians and a small amplifier providing music from a makeshift stage.

Once he would have fled. But with his mother’s death, it was as if a clear glass jar had been lifted, freeing him.

“What?” he repeated softly as the youths circled.

Two on one side, two on the other. Swiftly he assessed them and identified the leader.

Tall and ginger-haired, the gang’s front man squinted at Steven through clear gray eyes that gleamed a surprising amount of malignant self-awareness. Caution, too; just not enough.

“What’re you, some kind of freaking freak?” Under his black jacket, he wore a work shirt with the name
Jerry
on the pocket.

“Answer me, you freak,” taunted ginger-haired Jerry.

The others grinned, nudging one another. Steven wondered if he was about to get a beating.

Jerry put his grimy hand on Steven’s chest and pushed. “You think you’re better’n us?”

Steven wondered how guys like Jerry always knew that. It was as if they had radar for normal IQ or above.

And hated it. “No,” he lied evenly. “I don’t think so.”

The guy shoved him again, harder. Steven’s foot crunched onto the broken bottle. Jerry’s pals snickered appreciatively.

“That’s a real pretty shirt you got on, lemme see,” slurred the one with the worst acne, snatching at it with dirty fingers.

Just not being drunk gave Steven such a huge advantage, he thought it was hardly fair. Stepping back, he knew he shouldn’t push his luck. But he couldn’t resist.

“No,” he said mildly again, then blew a loud, wet raspberry at the kid.

The youths glanced astonishedly at one another. “Oh, man,” breathed the blocky one in the Iron Maiden T-shirt. The quartet closed menacingly around Steven.

But just as the first big fist came at Steven’s face, a hand reached out over his attackers’ shoulders and everything stopped.

“All right, all right,” a tired male voice uttered.

Another hand, pink and plump, joined the first, then each hand clamped firmly onto a black-clad shoulder and pulled.

The phalanx of hostile bodies parted. Between them stepped a cop. Or at least he was wearing a cop’s uniform.

“Boys, I’m gonna tell you this once. And you especially, Jerry,” the cop added to the ginger-haired youth. “I want you all to leave this fellow alone. I get a report he’s had any problems? You’re gonna have problems with
me
. Okay?”

Shaking off the cop’s grip, Steven’s adversaries all nodded sullenly. “Yeah, yeah,” they muttered.

“I mean it,” the cop pressed. “I ain’t a bit scared of any of you. You all know that from our past history together, right?”

The hooligans were too stubborn and dumb to back away, which let the cop make his point from a distance of about three inches.

“Right?” he repeated insistently. He had little red rosebud lips, a fluff of pale blond hair swept over the top of his head, and an air of simple unflappable confidence that said he was way more effective at law enforcement than he looked.

“Or maybe you’d hear me better if you were in the back seat of my squad car? Maybe I’ll find out you’ve got some more of the M-80s you’ve been setting off all over town?”

“No,” the gang’s leader muttered, and seemed ready to say something more. But then he thought better of it.

“Come on, let’s go find candy,” he told his pals, and that puzzled Steven. He’d have expected these guys to be beer hounds, not chocolate fiends.

But he forgot about it as they all skulked off and the cop turned to Steven. “As for you, you look like a nice guy, and this is a nice town. Believe it or not,” he said.

“But stay out of that crew’s way. I might not always be here to pull your butt out of a sling, you get me?”

You don’t understand
, Steven wanted to say. From down the street the gang’s leader shot Steven a look so full of threat, it was all Steven could do not to laugh out loud.

That guy
, he wanted tell the cop.
It’s
his
butt you saved
.

Jerry’s. Because of course Steven couldn’t kill him now. If the red-haired guy turned up dead, the cop would remember Steven.

And as delightful as it would be to watch those mean little gray eyes widen in fear, then bulge with the onset of asphyxia, it just wouldn’t be worth it.

“Yes, sir,” he answered politely. “I appreciate your help.”

In a way, he really was grateful. He wouldn’t have liked taking the beating those guys had been about to deliver, even if it did give him an excuse.

“Thank you.” His voice shook with the adrenaline that had flooded him, facing the four hoodlums. Still, something in it must’ve betrayed the fact that he was not as frightened as he appeared.

The cop narrowed his eyes. “Yeah,” he said, “I’ll bet your gratitude knows no bounds.”

But just then a barrage of firecracker explosions and a loud scream for help from somewhere nearby got Steven off the hook.

“Hang on, I’m coming!” the cop shouted, grabbing the radio on his belt as he ran. Turning, Steven walked toward a lantern-lit beer garden, scanning the throngs for his attackers.

But ginger-haired Jerry was gone, along with his black-clad pals.
Too bad
, Steven thought. A few inexpert punches, a bruise here and there … he’d have had to absorb that much from them.

But Steven felt sure he could have taken it easily, whatever they’d dished out. And then …

Then he’d have surprised them. Because it was all falling together now. He could feel it: the time, the place, his pent-up fury.

The taste of the too-rich food in his mouth. He let his gaze wander to the shadows past the streetlights, under the trees. At this hour, fatigue and alcohol sent groups and a few solitary revelers staggering unsteadily from the festivities.

Some got into their cars and drove away; he wished them more luck than they deserved. Others with weaving steps traced a zigzag pattern into the darkness alone.

One in particular caught his eye, a blonde girl in a tank top and shorts. Around her neck hung a thin gold chain that gleamed when passing car headlights hit it.

Steven eased alongside her, glanced over at her to see what the chain’s pendant spelled out in gold script.

And couldn’t believe his luck.
Candy
, it read.

Veering away, the girl stumbled a little; he caught her arm, steadying her. With a curse, she jerked from his grasp.

“Get away from me.” She’d been crying; he could hear it in her voice. And she was drunk.

“Beat it,” she told him angrily.

He stopped, letting her get ahead of him as she moved into the darkness away from the streetlights, until the sound of her uncertain footsteps had faded into the gloom.

When she had gone, he waited a little longer, in case someone else caught up. But no one did, so he followed her.