A Shroud for Aquarius
- Автор: Коллинз Макс Аллан
- Серия: Mallory #4
- Год: 1985
- Язык: английский
- Год: Walker
- ISBN: 978-0-8027-5629-9
- Жанр: Криминальные детективы
Электронная книга - «A Shroud for Aquarius». Краткое содержание книги:
I wasn’t surprised it was still with her, really; she’d had it ever since I was a kid, her drinking problem. When Ginnie’s father was on the road, she would sometimes come over to our house and stay with us, bringing Ginnie along, to try to stay on the wagon with my mother’s moral support. But sooner or later, Mrs. Mullens would hit the sauce again, and I knew that was the major reason why Ginnie thought so little of her mom.
Once, in our high school days, I told Ginnie her pot-smoking was no different than her mother’s drinking and she just laughed and said I was such a square.
“I thought more of her friends would drop by,” Mrs. Mullens said, disappointed with the turnout.
“There aren’t too many of her old high school classmates still in town. Some of her Iowa City friends will be at the service tomorrow morning, I’m sure.”
“That would be nice. J.T. and Malinda will be here tomorrow. You know J.T., don’t you? Ginnie’s husband?”
“Yes. And Malinda is Ginnie’s daughter.”
“That’s right. J.T.’s a nice man. He’s a poet, you know. I wish things could have worked out for Ginnie and J.T.”
“I look forward to meeting Ginnie’s daughter.”
“Sweet little girl. She’s four. Sweet child.” She wiped her eyes with the handkerchief again, and clutched her purse and rose, saying, “If you’ll excuse me for a moment. I need to take some medicine.”
She went off to the restroom. Ninety-proof medicine, no doubt. Whatever got her through this was fine with me.
I went looking for Roger. He was standing out in front, smoking a recently lit cigarette, the pastel floodlights of the funeral home giving him a little color.
“That your second cigarette, Roger?”
“If it is, what concern of yours is it?”
“Your mother could use a little support.”
He looked at me with smug distaste. “Who are you to talk? When was the last time you even saw my mother? I spend every day with her.”
“It’s cheaper than rent.”
“Go to hell.”
“You didn’t even like your sister much, did you, Roger?”
A convertible rumbled by, a couple of boys in Skol caps, their radio blasting some heavy-metal “song.”
“That’s my business,” Roger said, watching them.
“When did you see her last?”
“Last night,” he said, casually.
“Last night?”
“That’s right.”
“How long before she was killed?”
His head swiveled to look at me; eyes like black buttons. “Who says she was killed? The sheriff says it’s suicide.”
“Nothing’s official yet, Roger. When did you see her?”
“Go to hell.”
I walked over to him and smiled and put an arm around his shoulder; he looked at me suspiciously.
“Let’s be friends, Roger.”
“I never liked you and you never liked me, Mallory. Let’s leave it that way.”
“Fine. But we can at least be polite, can’t we?”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I mean, answer my question, or maybe I’ll roll you down West Third like a barrel.”
He pushed me away. “Leave me alone! I’ll—”
“Tell your mother?”
He sucked on the cigarette, nervously. “Why don’t you leave? You’re not family.”
“Tell me about the last time you saw your sister.”
“It was after supper. Maybe seven. I was gone by eight. We talked, that’s all.”
“What about?”
He shrugged. “I told you before I was out of work. I went to Ginnie for some help.” Snort. “For all the good it did me.”
“What do you mean?”
“I got brains!” he said, poking a thumb at his chest, hard, like that was where he kept them. “She had money. I offered her a business proposition, and she was too stupid to take me up on it.”
“What sort of business proposition?”
“Why should I tell you this?”
“Would you rather tell it to Sheriff Brennan?”
His dough boy face went slack with concern. Self-concern. “Do you think she was... murdered or something?”
“Or something,” I said. “Tell me about the business proposition.”
His shoulders sagged. “I’ve been developing my own computer programs.”
“Such as?”
“You wouldn’t understand, you dumb ass. Suffice to say I was seeking backing, to package and sell my wares.”
“Suffice to say. Why go to Ginnie?”
“She had money! She just sold that shop, didn’t she? She had money.”
“She turned you down.”
That pudgy face turned into a scowl; it was like seeing a Cabbage Patch doll get pissed. “She didn’t just turn me down. She laughed at me. Said I was... pathetic.”
I knew how he felt; she’d called me that once.
“We fought.”
“Fought?”
“Don’t make anything out of it, Mallory. We had an argument. Words. Like we been having since I was six and she was four, okay? We never got along.”
“Then why’d you ask her for money?”
He looked shocked. “Hell — family’s family, isn’t it? Blood’s thicker than water.”
Ginnie’s was; I’d seen some of it at her farmhouse last night.
His cigarette was down to the butt; he tossed it at the street, trailing orange sparks. Another car with boys and heavy-metal music rolled by.
“If you were such a great friend of hers,” he said, dripping sarcasm, “where were you when our father died?”
That had been last October; I’d been at a convention.
“I was out of town,” I said, feeling a pang of guilt anyway.
“Did you come around and see Mom? Did you go see Ginnie?”
“I sent your mother a card,” I said. “And I called Ginnie. If it’s any of your business.”
“You don’t like it so much when somebody asks you questions,” he said, and waddled inside.
I sat on the steps of the funeral home.
Ginnie’s father.
Jack Mullens. What a great, great guy. Took me fishing once when I was thirteen; let me, a junior-high kid, sit in and play poker with him and his friends, more than once; made me feel like an adult. I could see his blue eyes, under the shock of red hair, in a face full of faded freckles, smiling, the butt of a cigar clenched in his teeth as he studied a hand of poker like it was his private joke on the rest of us. It usually was.
Ginnie and her old man were close, very close; she disdained her mother as an unimaginative housewife, tied to her home and her son and her bottle. A symbol of everything the new liberated female wanted not to be. But Dad, wheeler-dealer Dad, hustler Dad, a born salesman, most of his life spent on the road, he was a guy who knew how to live life to the fullest. He’d died in a head-on collision with a livestock truck; he’d only been going 55, the cops said. That was his age, as well.
I went in and said goodnight to Mrs. Mullens, gave her a kiss on the cheek, smelling “medicine” on her breath, and nodded to her lump of a son. I paused at the casket, the closed casket, but somehow couldn’t imagine Ginnie in it.
Then I went home and tried to write, tried to get the new novel going, and couldn’t.
I lay in bed thinking about the last time I saw Ginnie, thinking about my class reunion.
9
The class reunion had been held at the local Elks Club, a massive two-story brick building facing Mississippi Drive, overlooking Riverview Park, which overlooked a Mississippi River view, as chance would have it. It was a cool June evening, and under a full moon the river looked gray and was stippled with gentle waves; I felt strangely detached. Somewhere between an out-of-body experience, and watching a rerun of a TV show you hadn’t much cared for the first time around. I was alone. Most of the people getting out of the cars filling the Elks parking lot were paired off. I wasn’t half of a married couple, however; I was a complete single male. Technically complete, anyway.