The Interview (29 page)

Tracey appeared from the hallway. She had thrown on jeans and a
t-shirt. It was only then that I realized how much cooler it was
here. It was probably pushing ninety degrees back home. Here in
Sonoma County it was in the low seventies.

“Jennifer, it's OK.” Tracey came up behind her daughter
and hugged her tightly. “You can relax.”

“Who is he, Mom?”

“We are about to find out. Why don't you take your sisters out
back for a little while.”

I jumped on that option. “Or, you and I could go out back and I
could smoke.”

Jennifer frowned. Tracey allowed me a small smile.

“That would be fine,” she said. “Shall we?”

I grabbed my mug and went into the backyard. There was a patio table
with four chairs. And an ashtray! I had my cigarettes out and one in
my mouth with lighter poised to strike in an instant. As soon as she
shut the sliding glass door I lit up. Amazing how stressful my life
had become. Guns, evil kids, prostitutes, guns. It all started to
wear on a guy after a while.

Tracey took a seat across from me. I blew smoke in the other
direction. She still looked like she had just rolled out of bed, but
she was attractive. Not my type at all, but I could see how a guy
could want to settle down and make a life with her. I got the
impression that the other shoe had dropped on this woman a long time
ago.

“Sorry about Jennifer. She can be a bit protective, and trust
is earned after years of hard work.”

I waved it away. “Didn't notice.”

She reached across the table and said, “Tracey.”

I shook the offered hand and replied, “Kelly. Nice to meet
you.”

“There. That seems more,” she hesitated before she
decided on “normal.”

“Don't know what that word means anymore, but I'll trust you.”

Tracey's smile was sad and filled with regret. “I know what you
mean. Been a long time since I felt normal.”

“Do you always answer the door with a gun in your hand?”

She glanced at the three girls sitting on the couch inside. “Depends
on who is standing on my porch. If I don't know them, then yes,
always. You just never know who is going to come knocking, Kelly. You
took it rather calmly by the way.”

“Character flaw. I take everything calmly.”

“How's that a flaw?”

“Long story,” I replied because I didn't feel like
getting into it. I was tired. I wanted this meeting to reach its
conclusion so I could drive home and fall asleep. “So what did
our mutual friend have to say in his note that convinced you not to
shoot me?”

She took my brush off in stride and said, “He said to trust
you. That means a lot. He doesn't hand out trust very often. There's
too much at stake.” Again she glanced at her girls. “He
said to ask you about Casey's husband. He indicated that was why he
trusted you, and in turn, why you should trust us. Would you tell me
about Casey's husband, please?”

Huh. Hadn't seen that coming. Not one bit.

Mr. Bat was full of surprises.

LAST WINTER, DURING ONE OF the few rainy days of the year, I found
myself in a moment of complete and total surprise. I had just
deposited the mail into 1232 El Dorado's mailbox. I stepped off their
walkway and onto their lawn. I don't think about things like that as
a rule. I walk nine miles a day on my route, over 25,000 steps a day
or some ridiculous number like that, and 99.9% of the time I am not
looking at my feet. I walk on autopilot. I have walked my route so
many times my feet know where and where not to go. On occasion, my
internal radar fails drastically and I'll slam into a light pole, or
a tree branch, or a stucco arch on one particularly bad day. That
last one left me with a bleeding gash across my forehead that I count
as my worst on-the-job accident. Sure I've been bit by the occasional
well-meaning dog, but never have I sustained a wound like that one.

I have stepped from the walkway at 1232 and onto their grass
thousands of times without incident. On that rainy day last winter,
however, my foot slipped right out from beneath me. Less than a
second passed before I landed flat on my back, and the interval was
even less before my head then slammed into the muddy ground. It
seemed much longer than that. The fall happened so fast I couldn't
recover my balance, but at the same time, the moment stretched on and
on.

I recalled that moment of endless free fall as I sat across from
Tracey Middleton. The bomb, thinly disguised as an innocent question,
she had just dropped on me seemed to hang in the air for an infinite
amount of time before it came crashing down on top of me.

Casey's husband was my secret. No one knew. I had never told anyone.
I never wrote the events down in journal form, or any other form, for
that matter. The confrontation between the former Mr. Casey was a
wisp of a memory locked away in my deepest, darkest corner. It was my
secret. And it was a secret I intended to take to my grave.

Mr. Bat had other plans apparently.

“Casey's husband was an abusive asshole who disappeared a few
years back.”

She stared and waited for me to continue. I didn't.

“That's it?” she asked after nearly a minute had gone by.

“You asked about Casey's husband. That's all I know. Casey
doesn't really talk about him. Never did. All I know is that he
vanished. Most people think he split town and is living out his days
somewhere else. Casey was about to have him arrested, I think. She
had reached the end of her proverbial rope. Not sure why he's any
concern of Mr. Bat or yours. Casey's my best friend.”

She nodded her head and said, “Huh?” She nibbled on her
lower lip, checked on the girls, nibbled, looked at me, the girls,
nibbled, and said, “Their father was not a nice man.”

“I'm sorry. Is that why you answer the door with a gun? Afraid
he's going to show up?”

Tracey shook her head slowly. “No. He won't be showing up. I
watched him bleed to death right out there in the street. He died
within a minute. It was too quick. I don't think he could feel pain
anymore as he lay there, but I certainly hope so.

“Jennifer was five. Delaney was three. And my youngest,
Miranda, was a year and a half. I had sent him to prison two years
before for raping me. Miranda was not planned. I love her and
wouldn't trade her for anything, but the circumstances surrounding
her conception were not the kind you write down in a baby book. My
jaw was broken. My spleen lacerated. My left eye socket was
fractured. My kidneys bruised. I peed blood for a week. The doctors
weren't even sure how I conceived given the amount of internal damage
he did to me.

“And that was after four years of steady abuse. I couldn't
leave. I couldn't support myself. I was terrified. I had already
conceded that I would die by his hands and there wasn't a thing I
could do about it. He had turned me into a self-loathing piece of
trash who thought she deserved every single thing he did to her.

“And then I met Brian. He saved me. He gave me will where I had
none. He believed in me when I couldn't. And when their father was
released on parole after 24 months, Brian killed him in front of my
house. He beat him to death with a tire iron. It was not in
self-defense. Brian would have gone to jail for a very long time. It
didn't matter that their father would have killed me and taken my
babies. Nothing mattered. He was dead and Brian ran.”

I waited for her to continue before I said, “That doesn't
explain the gun. If he's dead, then why the gun?”

She took a deep breath. I didn't know a human being could take a
breath like that. It was as if she was taking in all the oxygen she
possibly could because she knew it would be her last chance to
breathe once she explained the gun to me.

Tracey opened her mouth to speak, paused one final time, then said,
“They might try to get to Brian through me and the girls. If
they ever decided that Brian is no longer useful, or has become a
threat rather than an asset, they might come for us. Brian doesn't
think they know about the girls and I, but there is one man who does
know. He knows everything, and if he ever turned on Brian, then the
girls and I . . . We would be bait for the trap.”

OK, I understood the big breath now. But that was the only thing I
understood.

WHAT
THE
FUCK
?

“Who is They?” I asked.

“I don't know. I haven't seen Brian since that day. You are the
first contact I've had with him other than the occasional letter in
eight years. Do you get that, Mr. Jenks? Eight years. And now you
show up on my doorstep, and I'm supposed to trust you because Brian
says I need to. And Casey's husband is the reason I'm supposed to
trust you. Now would you please tell me about Casey's husband?”

So I did.

I LEFT TRACEY AND THE girls an hour later. I drove for two hours
before my body said enough was enough. It didn't matter how much
caffeine I poured into my body, I needed to sleep. I pulled off the
Interstate 5 and checked into a Motel 6. I asked to be woken up at 3
AM. That would give me time to cover the miles that remained on my
journey and get to work by eight. The prospect of a mindless day of
mail delivery appealed to me more than it ever had. The simple
process of casing mail, pulling it down, then walking on autopilot
sounded like heaven to me.

Sleep, however, sounded like oblivion, and that's what I really
wanted.

I entered my room, kicked my shoes off and climbed into bed. I closed
my eyes and waited for sleep to hit me like a sledgehammer. Course,
that didn't happen. My body was beyond exhaustion, my brain on the
other hand was wide awake and spinning.

FOR AS LONG AS I had known her, Casey came to work every day with the
weight of something dreadful upon her. I watched from the relative
safe distance of detached observation. The bruises got worse. Her
sick days became more frequent. She never said anything. She never
told me what was happening. Casey went about life in her quiet way
and did not unburden herself to me or anyone else that I know of. And
one day I came face to face with her husband quite by accident.

Our paths crossed at a Kragen Auto Parts store. The Cougar's starter
had given up the ghost the previous day. I pulled it that Sunday
morning, then headed over to the parts store. I was standing at the
counter, waiting for the guy to retrieve my starter from the back
when Casey's husband walked up next to me.

He recognized me and greeted me with a smile. “It's Kelly,
right?”

It took me a moment to recognize him. When his identity came to me, I
nodded but said nothing.

“You work with my wife, Casey,” he said in explanation.
“Jerry.”

I nodded again but ignored his offered hand. I had zero to say to
him. I knew he was a mechanic. Casey had relayed that much to me. He
owned a repair shop on Chapman in Orange, a few blocks west of the
Circle. The shop was closed on Sundays, but he was usually there for
a couple hours anyway. He loved working on cars. So did I. That
common bond between us wasn't enough for me to have a conversation
with him, however. The guy looked exactly like what he was: trailer
trash who beat his wife. He was taller than me by an inch or so.
Short black hair that looked like it hadn't been washed in a couple
days covered his head while a thick mustache adorned his face.
Washed-out brown eyes stared at me. I wear gloves when I work on
cars. He did not subscribe to this practice. His hands were
permanently stained with grease and oil. His nails were black around
the edges.

I made a decision.

“Here you go. One starter for a '67 Cougar.” The Kragen
guy returned with my part, ending the tiny moment between Jerry and
I. He opened the box and pulled the starter out so we could compare
the old with the new. Satisfied that I was getting the right part, I
placed it back in the box. He handed me a printout and I left Jerry
standing there without a word.

I paid for the part, exited the store, and sat in my other car back
then, an Isuzu Rodeo, to wait for Jerry to appear. I would follow
him. If he went home, then nothing would happen. If he went to his
shop, then something would. Simple as that.

Jerry came out of the store ten minutes later, climbed into an old El
Camino, and headed in the direction of his shop. I hate El Caminos.
I'm not sure why, but they have always rubbed me in the wrong way.
The fact that he drove one was just another reason to kick his ass.

I knew where the shop was, so I didn't bother following him. The
entrance of “Jerry's Auto Repair” was located on Chapman,
but the work area could be accessed from South Parker Street. I took
a roundabout route to the shop and parked half a block away on
Parker. An alley ran parallel to Chapman on the back side of the
businesses. I walked down the alley, hopped the chain link fence as
if it was a completely normal thing to do on a Sunday afternoon, and
went in search of Jerry. The El Camino was parked in the back lot
along with three other cars. There were two garage bays with large
roll-up doors. The one on the right was open.
Guns
&
Roses
’
“
Paradise City” was
coming from the open bay. Loud music is such a help to a guy in my
position, covers the sound of footsteps.

I entered the bay. Jerry was beneath an F-150, his legs protruding
out from just behind the driver's side front wheel. I moved quickly
and with no thought whatsoever. I grabbed his ankles and pulled him
from beneath the truck.

He started to yell, “What the-” I cut off his protest
with a foot to his temple. He went limp and silent.

I dragged him over to the El Camino. I stared down at his unconscious
form as I worked out my next move. Originally, my thought was to
rough him up and warn him not to touch Casey again. I tossed that
idea into the wind, and went with a new plan. I bent down, held his
head in my hands, then gave a violent twist. Nothing happened. I
repeated the process with more force and I heard his neck snap. I
searched for any sign of breathing. I didn't see any chest movement,
so I checked for a pulse. I didn't feel anything in his neck or his
chest.