A Justified Bitch. H.G. McKinnis
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was still the same: prominent cheekbones, full lips, and hauntingly beautiful eyes. The same smoldering look, Pat thought, that had always driven the boys crazy. “Is it okay if I go in alone?”
Madison spread his hands in mute apology. “I’ll have to tape the conversation, but I’d sure appreciate anything you can get her to say about the murder.”
Pat stepped through the adjoining door, face to face with her sister for the first time in ten years.
“Hello, Helen.” She leaned down and put her arms around the older sister she had once idolized. Helen’s body remained stiff as a block of wood. “It’s so good to see you. You look so”—the word “good” caught in her throat—“different. Who did your hair?”
“The Green M&M,” Helen replied, showing no surprise at her sister’s sudden appearance.
Don’t go there, Pat thought, lowering herself onto a chair. “It looks nice.”
“Do I know you?”
Oh . . . my . . . God!
“It’s me. Pat.” It came out sounding more like a question then an answer. “Your sister.”
Helen smacked her forehead with the palm of her hand. “Of course! Cleo! You look just like Mom.”
The words etched the surface of Pat’s ego like bitter acid, but she plowed ahead. “Helen, do you know what’s going on?”
Helen beamed. “We need to do this more often, Cleo. Why haven’t we kept in touch?”
Pat fumbled through her mind for the right response. “I write all the time. Don’t you read my letters?” But as she said it, she could see the stacks of newspapers, fliers, and unopened mail that littered Helen’s home. Of course she never read them. “Never mind. The police need to know what you saw, then we can leave.”
Helen stared at a crack in the wall, her head moving sinuously as her eyes followed the trail through the concrete. She murmured to herself. To Pat it sounded like, “no message there.”
“Did you see what happened?” Pat repeated, though she wasn’t sure Helen was listening. “What happened to your neighbor? You need to tell them.”
“I can’t talk about it,” Helen answered, her eyes still on the crack. “It hurts my stomach.”
“Listen, you need to cooperate. This is real, Helen. It’s not an adventure in your mind.”
“We’ll get in trouble.”
We. “Forget about Bobby for a minute. The police just want to know what you saw. Then we can go.”
“We like it here.” Helen smiled and leaned back in her chair. “Wipers keep on slappin’ time . . . ”
Pat glanced at the mirror. What did Madison expect? She reached across the table and took her sister’s hand. “Helen, what’s happened to you?”
Suddenly, as if Pat had reached out and flipped a switch, her sister came back. “Cleo, why are you here?”
Pat exhaled a breath she didn’t realize she was holding. “I’m worried. I don’t want anything bad to happen to you.” She turned toward the mirror. “Would you like to talk to the detective?”
Right on cue, the door opened and Madison stepped into the room. “Hello, Helen. How are you this morning?” He dropped his notebook on the table and sat down. “Can you tell me what you remember about yesterday morning?”
Bobby leaned down, so close Helen could feel his breath on her cheek. Go ahead. Tell them.
Helen took a deep breath, forcing air into her lungs until they ached with the expansion. “I heard Lupe. Howling.” She stopped, not sure what else to say.
Detective Madison nodded. “That’s Bebe’s dog, right?”
Helen sighed. Why did she always have to explain? “She’s a wolf, not a dog. Canis lupus, not Canis familiaris.”
Detective Madison scratched a line through the word “dog” on his notepad and wrote: Lupe = wolf. He flipped the pad around so Helen could read it.
Relieved that he understood, she nodded.
“What time was this? Morning or noon?”
She hesitated, trying to remember how to tell the difference. “After breakfast, I’m sure. I had Cheerios with low-fat milk. Cheerios are heart-healthy. It says so right on the box.” She caught Cleo’s eye, sensing some irritation. “What?”
“We know about Cheerios, Helen.”
Detective Madison leaned forward. “Why was the wolf howling?”
“She doesn’t howl in the mornings. She usually howls at night. All the dogs join in. It’s eerie.”
The detective nodded, absently clicking his pen, a Cross Matrix, red with a rolling ball. “Did Bobby see anything?”
Bobby nudged her shoulder. He wants to know why Lupe was howling.
Helen nodded. “He saw Lupe trying to get into the house . . . pawing at the glass door. The glass was banging against the frame so hard I was afraid it would break. I yelled at her. I said, ‘Get away from there, Lupe. You’re not allowed inside.’ Bebe never lets her in the house.” She smiled at Cleo, who was pretending to be Pat, then at the detective, who was pretending to be a secretary. “Lupe just looked at me, then went back to pawing. Fuzzball started throwing herself against the fence and barking, but she always does that, so I didn’t think anything of it.”
Bobby circled around behind the detective, reading his notes. Tell him about Bebe.
Bobby knew what other people expected; it was something she had always loved about him. “I saw Bebe. She was leaning against the glass door, her mouth open, but she didn’t yell. She always yells when the animals get noisy. She was with a client, so I tried not to look.” She sat back in her seat, exhausted, but relieved she had finally told someone.
Detective Madison looked up from his notepad. “All right, now we’re getting somewhere. Did you see the client?”
The low hum in Helen’s ears suddenly escalated into a roaring wash of sound. She shook her head, but couldn’t seem to clear it. “She’ll trade some fresh tomorrows for a taste of yesterday.” She embraced the power of the words, and slowly the song began to drive away the roar. “Hear those wipers slashin’ time . . .”
Pat swiped a tissue across her eyes, trying to hold back the tears. “This is how she deals with stress.” She stopped, realizing she was trying to explain a person she didn’t understand herself. “She won’t give you any more today.”
Detective Madison pulled a business card from his wallet and wrote a number on the back. “This is my cell. If she remembers anything—anything at all—please call. Anytime. I mean that, anytime.” Then he reached over and patted her hand. “This is not your fault, Pat. Don’t blame yourself.”
Pat swallowed hard, trying to keep the lump in her throat from developing into a sob. Damn! Despite his absolution, she knew it wasn’t going to be that easy.
Pat steered Helen toward the boys leaning against the front fender, their expressions a mixture of apprehension and curiosity. For an instant, she wanted nothing more than to take Helen back inside and tell Detective Madison she couldn’t handle the responsibility, but she knew she could no longer avoid this moment.
Jordan stepped forward. “Hi, I’m Jordan, your nephew. I was only six the last time I was here, but I sure remember you. You had a bunch of African masks and you let me wear them.”
The humming suddenly stopped. “Jordan?” Helen cocked her head to one side, a look of disbelief. “You’re so big. How tall are you? Five eight, five nine?” She whispered into Pat’s ear. “He’s gorgeous! You must be tripping over girlfriends.”