The Accident (7 page)

She wondered if Emily would wet her pants.

She tapped her phone and the screen illuminated. She activated the camera function and pressed the video icon.

Her foot nudged against something. She thought it was a purse. Something inside it jangled. Kneeling, she reached her hand in, felt what she thought had made the sound, and took it out.

She heard some motion. Through the crack, she saw the bedroom door open.

She tucked the item down into her front pocket. She kept her phone in her hand.

It wasn’t Emily coming into the room. It was her mother. It was Ann Slocum.

Kelly thought,
Uh-oh
.

She wondered whether she’d get in trouble for hiding in the woman’s closet. So she kept very still as Emily’s mother came around the bed and sat on the edge. She reached for the phone on the bedside table and punched in a number.

“Hey,” she said, holding the receiver close to her mouth. “Can you talk? Yeah, I’m alone … okay, so I hope your wrists are okay … yeah, wear long sleeves until the marks go away … you were wondering about next time … can do Wednesday, maybe, if that works for you? But I have to tell you, I’ve got to get more for … expenses and—hang on, I’ve got another call, okay, later—Hello?”

Kelly wasn’t getting even half the conversation, what with Mrs. Slocum whispering so much. She listened, holding her breath, petrified she’d be discovered.

“Why are you calling this … my cell’s off … not a good time … kid’s got someone sleeping … Yeah, he is … but look, you know the arrangement. You pay and … something in return … mark us … down for a new deal if you’ve got something else to offer.”

Ann Slocum paused, glanced toward the closet.

Kelly suddenly felt very frightened. It was one thing, hiding in a friend’s mother’s closet. That might make Mrs. Slocum angry. But hearing her private conversations, that might really make her mad.

Kelly dropped her arms to her sides and held them rigid, soldierlike, as though this might magically make her thinner, less noticeable. The woman started talking again.

“Okay, where do you want to do this … yeah, got it. Just don’t be stupid … end up with a bullet in your brain—what the—”

Ann Slocum was looking right into the crack now.

“Hang on a sec, there’s someone—what the hell are you doing in there?”

FIVE

I was sitting, having a beer, looking at the framed picture on my desk of Sheila and Kelly winter before last, bundled up against the cold, snow on their boots, wearing matching pink mitts. They were standing in front of an assortment of Christmas trees, the one on the far left the one we eventually chose to bring home and set up in the living room.

“They’re calling her Boozer,” I said. “Just thought you should know.” I held a hand up to the picture, warding off any imagined rebuttals. “I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to hear a damn thing you have to say.”

I drew on the bottle. This was only my first. It was going to take a few more to get where I wanted to be.

It was lonely in the house without Kelly. I wondered if I’d be able to sleep when it came time to hit the sack. I usually found myself getting up around two, coming down to the living room and turning on the TV. I dreaded going upstairs, sleeping in that big bed by myself.

The phone rang. I snatched the receiver off its cradle. “Hello.”

“Hey, Glenny, how’s it going?” Doug Pinder, my second in command at Garber Contracting.

“Hey,” I said.

“What are you doin’?”

“Just having a beer,” I said. “I dropped Kelly off a little while ago at a sleepover. First night here without her, since.”

“Shit, you’re on your own?” Doug said excitedly. “We should do something. It’s Friday night. Get out, live a little.” Doug was the kind of guy
who’d have told Mrs. Custer, within a week of her husband’s last stand, to get herself down to the saloon, hoist a few, let loose.

I glanced at the clock. Just after nine. “I don’t think so. I’m pretty beat.”

“Come on. Doesn’t have to be a going-out thing. I’m just sitting around here doing nothing. Betsy’s gone out, I got the place to myself, so get in your truck and mosey over. Maybe rent a movie or something on the way. And bring beer.”

“Where’s Betsy?”

“Who knows. I don’t question when good things happen.”

“I’m just not up to it, Doug, but thanks for the offer. I think I’m gonna finish this beer, have another, watch some television, and maybe go to bed.”

The thing was, I put off going to bed most every night. It was the place that, more than any other, reminded me of how different my life now was.

“Can’t mope around forever, my friend.”

“It hasn’t even been three weeks.”

“Oh, well, yeah, I guess that’s not very long. Look, no offense, Glenny. I know sometimes I come across as insensitive, but I don’t mean it.”

“It’s okay. Look, nice talking to you, and I’ll see you Monday morn—”

“Hang on just a sec. I should have brought this up at work today, but there wasn’t really a moment, you know?”

“What is it?”

“Okay, here’s the thing. I hate to ask, honest to God I do, but you remember, a month or so ago, I asked you for a bit of an advance?”

I sighed to myself. “I remember.”

“And I really appreciated it. Helped me over the hump. You’re a fucking lifesaver is what you are, Glenny.”

I waited.

“So, thing is, if you could find it in your heart to do that again, I’d be in your debt, man. I’m just going through a little rough patch at the moment. It’s not like I’m asking for a loan or a handout or something, just an advance.”

“How much?”

“Like, a month? Next four weeks’ pay now, and I swear, I won’t ask again.”

“What are you going to live on for a month after you pay off whatever it is you have to pay off?”

“Oh, don’t worry, I’ve got that under control.”

“You’re putting me in an awkward position, Doug.” I felt the hairs rising on the back of my neck. I loved this guy, but I wasn’t in the mood for any of his bullshit right now.

“Come on, man. Who pulled you out of that burning basement?”

“I know, Doug.” This was the card he most liked to play now.

“And really, this is the last time I’m gonna ask. After this, things’ll be totally cool.”

“That’s what you said last time.”

A self-deprecating chuckle. “Yeah, you’re probably right about that. But really, I’m just trying to sort out a few things, waiting for my luck to change. And I think that’s going to happen.”

“Doug, it’s not a matter of luck. You’ve got to face a few realities.”

“Hey, like, it’s not like I’m the only one, right? The whole country’s in the financial dumper. I mean, if it can happen to Wall Street, it can happen to anybody, you know what I’m—”

“Hang on,” I said, cutting him off. “It’s the other line.”

I hit the button. “Hello?”

“I want to come home,” Kelly said urgently, her voice nothing more than a whisper. “Come and get me now, Daddy. Please hurry.”

SIX

Belinda Morton had told George she had a house to show tonight. “You know, that listing I just got, that couple moving to Vermont?”

George was watching
Judge Judy
at the time and didn’t pay her any attention. All she needed was an excuse when she walked out the door, and when you were a real estate agent, you expected to have to head out at all hours. But just to be sure he wouldn’t ask questions, she waited until her husband’s favorite show was on. George loved
Judge Judy
. At first Belinda thought he was fascinated by all the various disputes—fights over unpaid rent, jilted lovers who keyed cars, girlfriends who wanted their men to pay back money they’d spent to bail them out—but she’d come to the conclusion it was the judge herself who kept George transfixed in front of the set. He had a thing for her. He was mesmerized by her stern nature, the way she dominated her court and everyone inside it.

Although, if George had been paying attention, he might have noticed that Belinda hadn’t actually been going out that much lately. The real estate market was in the toilet. No one was buying. And people who needed to sell—like the ones who’d lost their jobs and spent months without success trying to find new ones—were getting downright desperate. The hospital was closing beds, laying off nurses. The Board of Education was talking about laying off dozens of teachers. Dealerships shutting down. Even the police department was letting a couple of officers go due to budget cuts. Belinda never would have guessed she’d see the day when people would just walk away.
Let the bank have it, we don’t give a shit, we’re out of here
. Just packing up their things and leaving their homes behind. Some houses, you could hardly give them away. Down in Florida, they had condo developments almost entirely empty, buyers from Canada coming down, picking up a $250,000 vacation spot for $30,000.

It was a world gone mad.

And how great it would be, Belinda thought, if a collapsing real estate market were all she had to worry about these days.

A few weeks ago, falling house prices, hardly any buyers, and no fat commissions going into the bank account had her tossing and turning all night. But at least back then, all she was worried about was her financial future. Keeping a roof over their heads, making the lease payments on the Acura.

She wasn’t actually scared for her personal safety. She wasn’t worried that someone might
hurt
her.

Not like now.

Belinda still needed to find a way to come up with $37,000. But even that was just in the short term. Ultimately, she’d have to get her hands on the whole $62,000. She’d maxed out her credit cards with cash advances totaling ten grand, put another five on her line of credit. And she was going to have to pay back her friends the eight thousand they’d kicked in. If they could get another fifteen or twenty for their truck, put that toward the debt, that’d be great, but Belinda would still have to reimburse them. She’d rather be in debt to them than their suppliers.

The suppliers wanted the money that was owed them. They’d made that very clear to her friends. And they didn’t care whose fault it was.

But Belinda had been the one taking the blame. “This is your fault,” they told her. “You don’t fuck with these people. They want that money from us, and we want it from you.”

Belinda had pleaded that it really wasn’t her fault. “It was an
accident
,” she kept telling them. “It was just one of those things.”

Hardly an accident, they told her. Two cars hitting each other for no reason, that’s an accident. But when one of those drivers makes a decision to do something very, very stupid, well, that’s a bit of a gray area, isn’t it?

The car
burned up
, Belinda said. “What the hell do you want from me?”

No one was interested in excuses.

One way or another, she had to come up with the money. All the more reason to unload the stuff she still had. A few hundred here, a few hundred
there—it all helped. If only these assholes would just take the product back. That would help wipe out a good chunk of the debt. But they weren’t Sears. They had a “no return” policy. They just wanted their money.

She had a few deliveries she could make tonight. One guy in Derby who needed Avandia for his type 2 diabetes, and another customer only a couple of blocks over who was taking Propecia for baldness. Belinda wondered about pocketing a few of those herself, mashing them up and putting them in George’s cream of wheat in the morning. The comb-over thing he’d been trying for several years wasn’t fooling anybody. The other side of town there was a woman she delivered Viagra to, and Belinda wondered whether she was doing just that. Pulverizing the pill and hiding it in her husband’s Heavenly Hash ice cream. Getting him ready for bedtime. And she thought she should place a call to that man in Orange, see if he was getting low on lisinopril for his heart.

She was going to set up a website, but she’d found word of mouth had been working pretty well for her. Everyone needed a prescription of one kind or another, and these days everyone was looking for a way to save on drugstore prices. Considering hardly anyone had a drug plan, and those who did were wondering how much longer they’d get to keep it, there was a demand for what Belinda had to offer. Her prescription drugs—which, by the way, were available without a prescription—were made God knows where, somewhere in China, maybe in the same factories that cranked out those fake Fendi bags Ann Slocum hawked. And just like those purses, they could be had for a fraction of the cost of the real deal.

Belinda told herself she was doing a public service. Helping people, and helping them save money.

Not that she felt good enough about this sideline to tell George about it. He could be a real tight-ass about the sanctity of trademarks and copyright protections. He’d just about had a fit one time when they were in Manhattan, about five years ago, and Belinda tried to buy a counterfeit Kate Spade bag from a guy selling them out of a blanket around the corner from Ground Zero.

So she didn’t keep the drugs around the house.

Belinda kept them at the Torkin house.

Bernard and Barbara Torkin had put their house on the market thirteen months ago when they decided to move across the country to live with
her parents in Arizona. He’d accepted a sales job at his father-in-law’s Toyota dealership when GM killed its Saturn division and the dealership he’d worked at for sixteen years shut down.

The Torkins had a small two-story that backed onto a school playground. The house on one side was owned by a man who kept three dogs that never stopped barking. On the other, a guy who repaired motorcycles and listened to Black Sabbath 24/7.

Belinda could not unload the place. She’d advised the Torkins to drop their price, but they wouldn’t budge. Damned if they were going to sell for forty percent less than they paid. They’d wait for the market to rebound, and then sell.

Don’t hold your breath
, Belinda thought.

The good news was the Torkin house made a great place for Belinda Morton to hide her product. And tonight, she would head over to her “pharmacy,” as she liked to think of it, and fill some orders.