Eyes of the Innocent: A Mystery (25 page)

“We won’t say anything,” Sweet Thang said.

Right. Mum’s the word. We may end up printing it in a newspaper and distributing several hundred thousand copies of it. But we won’t tell Mom.

“So Windy kicks her out,” I said. “Then what?”

“Well, she came to me asking if she could stay with Ryan and me, and we—I—I just couldn’t. She was so mad. And she was saying how she had no place else to go. I told her she could get an apartment on her salary at the hospital, but she said there was no way she was moving back into some cold-water flat. When she left here, she was talking about how she was going to pay the mortgage herself.”

Tammy shook her head, like she was still in disbelief.

“I told her she wasn’t making nearly enough at the hospital,” Tammy finished. “But she didn’t want to hear it. She said she’d find a way.”

“That must be where the second-shift job came in,” I said. “She told us she was working at a pallet company, cleaning floors or something.”

“And that’s why she wasn’t home for those little boys when that fire started,” Tammy said. “So if I had just”—Tammy started losing her composure—“if I … I…”

She couldn’t finish her sentence. The guilty tears dripped down both sides of her face. Sweet Thang dove in to console her.

Meanwhile, I was starting to realize much of what we heard from Akilah—which I previously dismissed as one long fabrication—was really just a series of small twists on the truth. She wasn’t an orphan in the real sense of the word, but she was estranged from her mother and cut off from her sister. And she was struggling under the weight of a pretty hefty mortgage after all.

At the same time, my casting of Rhonda Byers as the vengeful wife was starting to look rather implausible. If Rhonda was of the mind-set to go after Akilah, she would have done it years ago—not now, when the affair was over. And if that was the case, Rhonda probably had nothing to do with her husband’s disappearance, either.

Then that thing that had been trying to wiggle and niggle its way out of my brain finally surfaced. It was that big, obvious blood smear. If Rhonda Byers was trying to hide a crime, wouldn’t she have been smart enough to clean it up before the police arrived?

So, to review, I had a missing councilman who threw around his weight to hide the existence of a now-torched love shack. And the former occupant of that love shack, the councilman’s secret girlfriend, was convinced the perpetrator of those crimes was now after her.

And I still didn’t have the slightest idea what was really going on.

*   *   *

It took a while to mop up the tears, meet the kids when they got back from ice cream, then say our good-byes. By the time we returned to Walter, it was starting to spit rain at us. It was also far later than I thought.

“Dammit,” I said, looking at Walter’s clock, which read 8:04.

“What is it?” Sweet Thang said.

“Damn, damn, damn,” I replied.

“What’s happening?”

“I, uh, I’m going to be late for something,” I answered.

“Something important?”

I looked over at Sweet Thang, with her bouncy blond curls and cute button nose, and I just couldn’t bring myself to explain that her tasty CR had a date with the city editor. I told myself it was because I didn’t want to break her heart. But if I was being more honest, it’s because I was a typical, despicable guy, and even though I knew I should have absolutely nothing to do with Sweet Thang, I still wanted to keep my options open.

“It’s, uh, just a dinner with a friend,” I said.

Except it wasn’t just dinner with a friend. It was a dinner at a four-star restaurant with a dress code. I looked down at myself. I was presentable, with my white shirt and my half-Windsor knotted tie. But I didn’t have a jacket. I needed a jacket.

I did some math as Sweet Thang pulled away from Tammy’s house and headed back toward Newark. It was going to take at least fifteen minutes to get back to Newark. From there, it was another fifteen minutes back to Bloomfield to grab a jacket out of my closet. It would take at least thirty minutes to get from there to Hoboken. At that point it would be after nine, even if I could find parking quickly. There was just no way I could be more than half an hour late for a date—at least not with a woman like Tina.

Okay, different plan: Bloomfield was ten minutes away. If I had Sweet Thang stop off there, I could run in and pick up my jacket. Then it would be fifteen minutes to Newark to get my car and only another fifteen minutes to Hoboken, if I got cute with the speed limit and decided to make some red lights optional. That would get me there only about fifteen minutes late. Anyone would forgive fifteen minutes. Hell, that was just being fashionable.

“Actually, would you mind stopping at my house in Bloomfield on the way back?” I said, as the rain picked up in intensity. “I’m a little pressed for time and I need to grab something.”

“No problem!” she said enthusiastically.

“Great,” I said. “Just get on the parkway and I’ll guide you from there.”

As Sweet Thang headed for the Garden State Parkway, I pulled out my phone and texted Tina: “Unavoidably detained. Running late but on the way. Wait for me.”

I shoved my phone back in my pocket, then settled into Walter’s passenger side seat. Sweet Thang had the radio on and was lightly singing along to some vapid pop song.

“So, Tammy seemed really nice,” Sweet Thang said between verses. “I just felt so badly for her because I know what it’s like to…”

She kept yammering on, but I wasn’t paying much attention. I threw in an “uh-huh” and “oh” every once in a while to at least pretend I was paying attention. Mostly, I was focused on the green Ford Windstar in front of me, which was inching along the entrance ramp to the parkway at precisely the same speed as the red Honda Civic in front of it, which was creeping like the white Mitsubishi Gallant farther up, and so on.

What was taking so long? Sure, it was raining—pretty hard now, actually—but why wasn’t the ramp moving? Where were all these people going anyway and how could it possibly be more important than my potential booty call with the ravishingly hot Tina?

Then, in the distance, I got a glimpse of the parkway itself. And there it was, 8:12 at night, and all four of its northbound lanes were a sea of red brake lights reflecting on puddles of water. The only thing moving was the puddles as more rain fell on them.

It took another six minutes just to get on the road, and I watched despairingly as the number on Walter’s clock grew larger. Sweet Thang was jabbering about something now—her recent trip to Turkey? The turkey sandwich she ate for lunch? I definitely heard the word “turkey” thrown in—and I kept trying to recalculate my various ETAs until they stopped having any meaning.

Then, at 8:31, I got a text from Tina: “UR late.”

I immediately fired back: “Stuck in traffic.”

Less than a minute passed before I received: “Not my fault. U close?”

I winced and tapped out: “Not really. Very sorry.”

This time it took a little longer to get: “Pulling waiter into supply closet now. Good night.”

I quickly texted: “Rain check?”

Her reply: “You suck.”

I sighed, buried my phone back in my pocket, and stared out at the brake lights of a disco-era Oldsmobile Cutlass.

“Something wrong?” Sweet Thang asked.

“Yeah, my friend had to cancel dinner,” I said. “I was supposed to be there”—I looked at the clock—“four minutes ago.”

“So? Won’t your friend wait for you?”

“I guess not.”

“That’s not a very good friend,” Sweet Thang said definitively.

And maybe it was the way Sweet Thang said it—like it was one of life’s fundamental truths—but the more I thought about it, I decided she was right. Who cancels on someone when they’re four minutes late? What kind of friend is that?

It’s not really a friend. It’s a control freak of a woman who is playing games and messing with a guy’s head. And who needs that? Not me. Not anymore. No, I needed something simpler in my life.

I reclined a bit in my seat, no longer stressed about traffic or worried about Tina’s wrath. Walter’s heater was working with quiet efficiency, and I savored the warmth of the car and the smell of the leather seats. I glanced over at Sweet Thang, who was again singing along to the radio, unbothered by the nasty weather, the long day, or any of the small inconveniences of life. She was just happy. And wasn’t it pleasant to be with someone who was happy?

“So it looks like I’m free for dinner,” I said. “What about you? You hungry?”

*   *   *

We decided that on such an inclement night, dining in was better than going out. And since my place was closer than her place—and we were headed in that direction anyway—we chose my place. Shortly after reaching that conclusion, the parkway started moving again, as if the Traffic Gods themselves wanted us to make good time.

My house is what Realtors would call “cozy,” but only because “so small you can vacuum the entire thing without having to change plugs” doesn’t fit as well on a multiple-listing service entry. But I liked it just fine. After all, it was just me and Deadline. And Deadline didn’t like to travel too far for the litter box.

As a modern bachelor, I shop on an as-needed basis and keep nothing beyond the bare essentials in my refrigerator: beer, processed cheese, salsa, and, possibly, milk (for morning cereal). Anything else will grow a beard and be applying for credit cards by the time I get around to throwing it out.

My freezer is a different story. The freezer, I have discovered, is the key for the on-the-go single guy such as myself, because you can keep things in there for months and not have to worry about it looking like a breeding ground for penicillin. Meats. Sauces. Side dishes. Entrees. They’re all in there, all premade. And they’re all frozen while still fresh. That’s the mistake most people make with their freezers. If you toss in leftovers because you know they’re about to turn, a couple months in the deep freeze is not going to make them perk up. You have to put some love in your freezer if you expect it to love you back.

After we dashed inside, dodging raindrops all the way, I did a quick freezer raid and—rejecting options that would require some assembly—came away with sausage lasagna and half a baguette. I tossed them both in the oven, lit some candles (another modern bachelor must-have), and opened a bottle of red wine.

Sweet Thang was checking out my living room, which also doubled as my family room, sitting room, great room, and TV room. She cooed at Deadline, who was pressing himself against her leg, in something near rapture. I’ve heard of people judging new acquaintances based on how their pets respond to them—because, after all, if
Fluffy
likes you, you must be okay.

That wouldn’t work with Deadline. He accepts affection indiscriminate of the source. A masked, knife-wielding assailant could break into my home and hack me into a dozen pieces as I slept. But if he stopped to rub Deadline behind his left ear on the way out, Deadline would be purring so loudly you’d think someone started a lawnmower in the next room.

“Your cat is soooo cute,” Sweet Thang said. “What’s his name?”

“Deadline,” I called out as I puttered around, getting things just right.

I can’t say I was actually trying to seduce Sweet Thang or was even cognizant of how my actions might be construed. At a certain point in time, when you’ve been dating long enough, some gestures just become automatic. Like the candles. Or the iPod playlist with just the right music (my rule: no Barry White. It looks like you’re trying too hard). Or remembering to bump up the thermostat a few degrees. It becomes like a dance you know so well you can just lose yourself in the song and let your body react to the rhythm. Especially once the wine starts working.

So I wasn’t considering the ramifications when, after dinner, I invited Sweet Thang onto the couch with another glass of wine. And I wasn’t thinking when I sat within arm’s length of her and we talked about old relationships and the wisdom we gained from how they’d gone wrong. And I wasn’t paying attention as I started absentmindedly tracing the outline of her cheek with my hand as she spoke of a particularly heartrending breakup.

But the next thing I knew, we were kissing. And sometime after that, her dress became a floor decoration. More garments soon followed it there. The breathing got urgent. The blood got pumping.

And then, just when things were about to get interesting, I heard five words that drained all the blood out of me: “I’ve never done this before.”

She what?!?

I pulled away abruptly.

“What do you mean?” I said. “You don’t mean you’re a…”

I couldn’t even spit out the word—“virgin”—because it was so thoroughly inconceivable. Sweet Thang? A virgin? What about all the dirty talk about floorboards and whatnot? The ability to flirt information out of people like a hot double agent? The light brushes with the hand that made my arm hair stand straight?

For that matter, how was it possible a body like hers had gone through high school and college without some guy being clever enough to put it to the use nature intended?

But there she was, nodding at me earnestly.

“It’s not like I ever planned it this way,” she explained. “It just sort of never happened. I didn’t want to be the girl who hooked up at prom. And I didn’t want to be the girl who gave it up for some frat boy after a mixer. And I didn’t want to have some bar hookup with a guy who was going to give me a fake phone number. And, I don’t know. It’s not a big deal.”

But I knew better. No matter what she said, it was a Very Big Deal. I’m not saying Sweet Thang needed to be a blushing virgin on her wedding night. But I was just old-fashioned enough to think her first time ought to be a little more special than re-heated lasagna on a rainy Tuesday night in February.

I had no business being her first. I was attracted to her physically, but I didn’t really like her in that way, and I had finally reached a maturity level in my life where I knew the difference.

Besides, at a certain point, a guy gets too old for deflowering virgins. I just didn’t have the energy to deal with the drama of the newly plucked, the guilty phone calls to Mother, the recriminations when the relationship went sour.