Page 44 of A Winter of Discontent for Henry Milch
“It’s the kitten, isn’t it?” Zoey guessed.
“No. It’s not. It’s Carol’s nephew.”
I mean, didn’t they watch television at all?The Brady Bruchwas propping up at least two cable networks. And Patty was old enough to have seen it when it came out.
To my surprise, she leaned over and said, “Oh look, there’s Bobbie’s son, Hal.”
I followed her stare across the room. I’d expected someone around my age, but this guy was around fifty, had lost most of his hair, had deep set haunted eyes and had obviously seen some hard times. A lot of hard times.
I was reminded again of the similarities between our mothers—yes, I know that’s coming up a lot. Then Hal smiled at someone, revealing that he had less than ten teeth. Despite my mother’s obvious and persistent flaws, she had always provided dental care. Or at least her various boyfriends had. In fact, she’d nearly married a dentist so I could have braces.
I was about to get up and go talk to him, the words, “Could you watch—” had come out of my mouth, when Patty cryptically said, “Detroit.”
“Detroit? What about Detroit.”
“That’s where Bobbie killed a man. In a bar.”
I watched her carefully. This didn’t feel like the truth. This felt like something she was making up.
“So, what? She got in a knife fight?”
She shook her head. “This guy tried to drug her, put something in her drink. She figured it out, so when he looked away she switched the drinks. He drank it and died.”
She’d just made the knife fight sound more believable. “So he was trying to drug her… to have sex with her?”
“I guess.”
“And that amount of whatever the drug was killed him?”
She shrugged. “All I know is what Bobbie told me.”
I still didn’t believe her. She never would have told me that Bobbie killed a man if this was the story. And even if she did, why would she try to take it back? Well, maybe because she was embarrassed that she’d told me something so obviously untrue. But then, tonight, she was trying not to tell me. This didn’t feel like the kind of story she’d try to hide.
And then Detective Lehmann walked in.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
We won. Emerald had begun screaming because she was hungry. I got the bartender to run her bottle under hot water and popped it into her mouth. She spent the entire second round finishing the bottle. Meanwhile, we crushed it. We’d caught up and were now sixty points ahead of all the other teams.
Detective Lehmann, who’d come with his pretty wife, Gloria, got the last empty booth in the place. He had a draft beer while she had an appletini. They didn’t seem to talk much, mostly he was watching us all. Or maybe not all of us. Maybe just me.
The game finished up. We won, which meant we got a gift certificate, twenty bucks, to come back to Main Street Café for dinner. I had no intention of socializing with these people, so I hurried out of there as quickly as possible. On the ride home, I was grateful for my grandmother’s SUV. The snow was thick and wet and coming down fast. I clutched the steering wheel tightly, while my sister sat in her car seat, happy for once, discovering that she had fingers.
The next morning—and I do mean morning, it wasn’t even seven yet—I was still in my UCLA blue-and-yellow pajamas and had just finished feeding Emerald. Her first experience of applesauce. She seemed to like it. Anyway, what I’m trying to get to is that there was a sudden pounding on the front door. When I got there, I opened the door and there stood Detective Lehmann.
Without a hello or ‘how ya doing’ he said, “I need you to come with me.”
I didn’t like the sound of that, so I said, “I’d rather not.”
“Fine. Henry Milch you’re under arrest for interfering with a sheriff’s investigation. If you come with me peaceably I won’t cuff you.”
Then he read me my rights, which were extremely boring, especially for something that important. When he was done, I said, “I can’t leave my sister alone with my grandmother. She’s not well enough to take care of a baby. Can you come back at noon? There will be someone here then.”
“No, I can’t come back at noon! You’re being arrested.”
“Yes, I understand that. But it’s not convenient.”
“It’s not meant to be.”
