Sendoff for a Snitch (8 page)

She put the car in gear. “I don’t want to hear any more about a shelter.”

Belatedly, it occurred to me that I recognized the voice. I tried to turn my head to get a look at her face, but my neck didn’t seem to work right.

“Mandy?” I asked.

Chapter 8

“Y
es?”

I shook my head. “Sorry. Just confused.”

She made that tsking sound again. “Typical hypothermia symptom. You really should go to the hospital.”

“No!” My shivering became more violent, if that was possible. I tried to sound reasonable. “I mean, I’d probably end up just sitting in the emergency waiting room for hours. In my wet clothes.” My tongue felt thick and clumsy, and my chattering teeth closed on it. Hard. It hurt.

“I doubt it,” she said. But she turned the car toward her house, away from the hospital. I knew where she lived, and I’d been to her house once before.

She had a garage door opener so no one had to get out of the car to open the door. The garage wasn’t attached, though, so we would have to walk across an open area to get to the house. The rain continued to pelt down.

Mandy got out of the car. “You stay here while I go open the back door.” She opened the car door and took my pile of soggy belongings.

I leaned my head back again and closed my eyes. The air in the car was warm. Despite the shivering, I could just drift off to sleep here and worry about where I was going to go when I woke up. It even seemed like a good idea.

Mandy was back, holding the car door open and tugging on my arm. “If you can’t get out, I’ll have to take you to the emergency room.”

“Sorry.” I stirred myself. “Just fell asleep.”

“Or passed out.”

I moved my reluctant right foot over the doorframe and to the ground. My boot squished in the wet gravel.

Mandy steadied me, and I managed to stand. With a hitching gait, we moved toward the back door of the house. The stairs up to it looked too steep for anyone to climb, but with her supporting me, I made it up them and through the door.

We were in a long hallway with a washer and dryer lined up against the wall. A big washtub stood next to them. I made it that far and put my hands on the edge, leaning on it.

My stuff was in the tub. Wet as it all was, that was probably a good place for it. I touched the wool of the jacket. It was soaked. A musty, wet wool smell tickled my nose.

What did I expect? Roses?

“There’s a small bathroom there,” she said, indicating a door by the end of the hall. “Can you stay down here while I see what I can find in terms of warm clothes?”

I could stay all right. But I wasn’t sure it would be on my feet. I said, “Yeah.”

“Good. I’ll be right back. Meanwhile, see if you can get your wet clothes off.”

Then I’d be naked, I wanted to say. But she must have known that. Maybe that’s why she pointed out the bathroom. So I just said, “Okay.”

She went through the inner door into the main part of the house, and I peered stupidly down at my boots. They were thoroughly wet and should come off. And probably join my other things in the washtub so they didn’t drip on the floor.

I tried to take a step toward the bathroom, but my legs didn’t seem to be working right. Seeing no good place to sit down, I finally just sank to the floor and tried to make my numb and shivering fingers work on the laces. They refused to come undone. I leaned my head forward and rested it on my knees. It had been years since I’d felt like crying out of frustration, but I could see myself doing it now.

The door opened again. “Are you awake?” Mandy asked.

“Yes, ma’am.” I lifted my head. “I’m just trying to untie my bootlaces.”

She knelt down next to me and made quick work of the double-tied bows. Then she loosened the laces, yanked out the tongues, and pulled the boots off.

I tried to protest, but the words wouldn’t come.

She worked the soaked socks off my feet and stood up. “You need to get those clothes off.”

With her help, I got up and leaned on the washtub again, staring at the boots and socks that now lay on top of everything else.

I started to fumble with the buttons on my flannel shirt. She brushed my hands aside and undid them. Then she removed one of my hands from the edge of the tub and tugged on the sleeve of the shirt. It slid off my arm.

She put that hand back on the edge of the tub and did the same with the other sleeve.

“Now your T-shirt and pants,” she said.

I gathered what strength I could muster. “I can manage them.” Determined to prove I could, I let go of the wash tub and pulled the T-shirt over my head. Without falling over.

“Do you need me to undo your zipper?” she asked.

“I can get it,” I said with more assurance than I felt. My hands were warming up a bit. They hurt like hell, but my fingers were beginning to follow the instructions my mind gave them. I demonstrated to her that I could grasp the zipper and pull it down.

She nodded. “I put some clothes on top of the washing machine. Do you want me to help you get them on?”

“No, ma’am. I can manage.”

“Okay. I’m going to put the teakettle on. And then I’m going upstairs to put some dry clothes on myself.”

I didn’t usually drink tea, but I wasn’t going to turn down anything warm.

She went back through the door into the kitchen.

I pulled the pants off and dumped them on top of the other stuff. I knew the air wasn’t freezing, but it felt that way when it hit my bare skin. I looked at the clothes she had left. I wasn’t sure I could manage to pull the T-shirt or the rugby shirt over my head, but there was a sweater that buttoned up the front. It might be itchy against my skin, but at this point, I didn’t care. I struggled to shove my arms into the sleeves, finally managed, and then I pulled it closed in front of my chest, fumbling a few of the buttons closed.

It was soft and warm, not itchy at all.

The pants were more of a challenge. I didn’t want to go without underwear if I could help it, so I pulled on the boxers, balancing against the tub. Then I put on the pants she’d brought. They were some kind of flannel-lined khakis. A little big, but they didn’t threaten to fall off. And they felt wonderful.

The socks were an impossibility. I left them and went into the kitchen.

A woman stood there, taking the teakettle off the burner. She wasn’t Mandy.

I just stood and blinked, swaying lightly.

“You must be Jesse,” she said, gesturing at one of the chairs surrounding a table. “Why don’t you sit down?”

I practically collapsed into the chair.

She looked at my bare feet and frowned. “Didn’t Mandy bring you a pair of slippers?”

I hadn’t noticed any slippers, but I was beyond noticing much.

She went into the hallway and came back with the clothes I hadn’t been able to manage and the slippers, dropping them next to me. True to their name, I could just slip my feet into them. They were lined with something soft and furry.

“I’m Nicole,” she said. “Would you like some tea? Or something stronger?”

I would have preferred coffee, but she wasn’t offering that. “Tea’s fine.”

“We’ve got some brandy. That might be better for you.” She went over to a cupboard and opened it.

I agonized over what to tell her. Better to get the ugly truth out. “I’m on parole. I’m not supposed to have any alcohol.”

“Really?” Nicole raised her eyebrows. “I didn’t realize that. I mean, Mandy told me a little bit, like that you were on parole, but…”

“Yeah, well. I’m not gonna take a chance of getting in trouble over something stupid like that. Until I’m off supervision, they could send me back to prison for that.”

“How long will it be until you’re off supervision?”

I smiled grimly. “Another twenty years or so.”

Her eyes opened wide. “And how long were you in prison?”

“Close to twenty years.”

She shook her head. “Do you mind me asking what it was you did?”

I shifted uncomfortably. I hated it when people asked things like that. “I was convicted of murder.” I usually just let the conviction stand on its own.

“Who did you kill?”

I tried to avoid this conversation whenever I could, and this was the second time in two days I’d be having it, but if I was going to be spending some time here, she deserved an honest answer.

“I didn’t really kill anyone myself. I was the lookout while my older brothers tried to rob a drug dealer. I thought they were just going in to make a buy. The dealer ended up shot. I was outside, so I really can’t tell you exactly what happened.”

“And you were convicted of murder? That doesn’t seem fair.”

“Fair doesn’t enter into it. In this state, anyone involved in the commission of a felony that results in a death is guilty of murder. You don’t have to be the one who pulled the trigger.”

“Or even know a felony was being committed?”

I stared at the tabletop. I’d been over this hundreds of times in my mind. “No one would have believed me. They thought I was inside the apartment, and I didn’t deny it when they first questioned me. I look a lot like my brothers, and I don’t think they ever caught up with them on this one. Besides, the drug deal itself was a felony, so it really isn’t a matter of not knowing a felony was being committed. I just didn’t know about the robbery. Or the shooting.”

“Still…” She put the mug of tea on the table in front of me. “How old were you?”

I wrapped my trembling hands around the mug. “Thank you,” I said. “I was sixteen.”

“Sixteen? Weren’t you a juvenile?”

“Murder and rape charges automatically go to adult court if the defendant is fourteen or older in this state.”

“I didn’t know that.”

The heat from the mug felt good on my hands. “I didn’t, either. But I found out fast enough.”

Nicole sighed and changed the subject. “Mandy said you were quite a hero. That you saved a woman and her two children. They all might have drowned. You, too.”

I tried to grin, but my face felt stiff and unmoving. I needed a shave. “I don’t know about drown. But I think we might have frozen.”

“Mandy said you tied a rope around a tree and waded out to the car. And after you got everyone to dry ground, the car rolled over.”

“There wasn’t any dry ground,” I said. “Everywhere was pretty…darn wet.” I’d almost dropped the f-bomb. On a woman I didn’t know. In someone else’s house. Jeez, was my respect meter turned off today? My brain certainly felt that way.

“Well, out of the water, at any rate.”

“True, that.”

She peered at me critically as I held onto the mug but didn’t try to drink any of it. I could hold my hands pretty steady as long as they were clutching the mug.

“Can I heat you up a can of soup? That’d be warming. And more filling than just tea.”

I hadn’t realized I was hungry, but soup sounded good. “Yes, ma’am. I’d appreciate that.” I thought for a minute. “You still got electric power.”

She went back to a cupboard and got down a red and white can. “Mandy has an emergency generator. It doesn’t run everything, but it keeps a few things going.” She looked at the can in her hand. “Chicken noodle okay?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I tried a sip of the tea. My hand shook as I raised the mug, and I almost spilled it, so I put it down. I didn’t need to make a mess. Or get the front of the sweater wet.

“This is a nice soft sweater,” I said, rubbing my cheek against the shoulder.

“It should be.” Nicole poured the soup into a bowl and stuck it in the microwave. Handy things, microwaves. Kelly had one.

“It’s one hundred percent cashmere,” she continued. “Only the best for Mandy’s ex, Sterling. Did you know Sterling?”

“Yeah.” I knew Sterling Radman. He’d been an executive at Quality Steel Fabrications, where I worked. And involved in nefarious get-rich-quick schemes, most of them involving fake IDs and drugs, shipped out packaged in products manufactured by Quality Steel. He’d tried to frame me for the murder of a forklift driver who’d gotten so into crystal meth that he was no longer a reliable accomplice to Radman’s schemes.

I hadn’t really followed up on how the case was progressing, but I imagined that, instead of sending me back to prison as he’d planned, Radman was either there now himself or well on his way. He’d cop some kind of plea and, in the way of white collar criminals, be sent to one of the low security, “country club” prisons for a few years.

Unless they managed to make the murder charges stick. He’d have a good lawyer; I imagined they’d negotiate a deal that dropped them. I didn’t think they had really solid evidence, although there was very little doubt he was guilty.

Sterling had also tried to strip Mandy of her inherited wealth. She was in her late thirties and naïve when she married him, and she’d let him manipulate her for a while. Then at one point, she’d been looking for a way out and maybe some revenge, but thank goodness she’d talked it out with me before she did anything rash. I’d managed to get her to go to see her lawyer, who of course helped her file for divorce.

Nicole smiled. “I’ve been encouraging Mandy to get rid of Sterling’s things. But those clothes have certainly come in handy, haven’t they?”

“Yes, ma’am.” I flexed my shoulders in the soft warmth of the sweater.

When the soup was hot, Nicole took the bowl out of the microwave and placed it in front of me with a spoon.

Concentrating on keeping my right hand as steady as possible, I raised a spoonful to my mouth.

It tasted wonderful.

Nicole brought over some crackers.

Before I knew it, the soup and crackers were gone.

“Thank you,” I said, taking a sip of the tea. My hands were only shaking a little now. I yawned. I was having trouble keeping my eyes open.

Nicole frowned. “Wanting to sleep is a symptom of hypothermia. It’s only early afternoon. You shouldn’t be so tired. Are you still feeling so cold?”

“Not nearly as cold I was a little while ago. And I worked all night—I got off at eight this morning. This is when I’d usually be sleeping. But they’ve blocked off the streets around my apartment, which is probably flooded anyhow.”

“No wonder you’re so tired.” She approached me and held up her hand. “Let me feel your forehead—see if you feel too cold. Or too hot.”

With an effort, I didn’t flinch away from her. I caught a whiff of flowery perfume. Her hand was soft and smooth.

“You feel warm enough. I’d say you could go sleep in the carriage house out back—it’s furnished and all—but the heat was turned off and the pipes drained.”

“Nobody lives there?”

Nicole blushed. “Well, technically I do. I rent it. But I started spending most of my time here in the main house with Mandy, and eventually, I just moved in with her. So we figured no sense spending money heating an unused apartment.”

Why would she feel a need to explain her living arrangements to me, of all people?

“Maybe it’d be better if you took a nap on the sofa in the back parlor,” she said. “I could get you a pillow and a blanket.”

That sounded like a great idea to me. “If you don’t mind.”

“No, I think it would be fine. Let me run upstairs and check with Mandy.”

Nicole came down carrying a pile of blankets and pillows. “She’s pretty tired herself and is lying down, but she says that would work. Let’s go make up the sofa for you.”

I got unsteadily to my feet and followed her.

The house was a huge old Victorian mansion. Its downstairs consisted of a confusing maze of smallish rooms, some of whose original purpose I could only guess at. We passed through a dining room off the kitchen, through a long hall with a staircase leading up, and into a series of rooms along the other side of the house.

Nicole led me to the last one, a room with large windows overlooking the back garden, barren and brown at this time of year, but with a hope of approaching spring. Rain lashed at the glass.

She indicated a long, fragile-looking couch along one wall and tossed a pillow on one end.