Page 69 of A Winter of Discontent for Henry Milch
“I’m going over to his house. You should come with me.”
“No. I really shouldn’t.”
“He’s going to have questions.”
“He doesn’t want the answers I have.”
“Okay… so lie.”
“No problem. ‘I heard that people had broken into this summer house to… do light drugs and have intellectual conversations. Denny was so interested in the conversations he stayed there for days and did lots and lots of the light, almost harmless drugs that his heart exploded, which couldn’t possibly have been as painful as it sounds because he died with a look of satisfied contentment on his face.’ Is that what you want me to say?”
“Somewhere in between that and what you actually saw. I’ll pick you up in forty-five minutes.”
I hung up the blueberry-coated phone. I planned to go outside and tell her no again when she arrived, which didn’t mean I had nothing to do. First, I needed to wipe down my sister. Then I’d put her into the playpen long enough to take a shower.
Playpens were much more useful than I thought, and I probably should have relented and brought it out before now. I really should pay less attention to random women I meet at Meijer than I had been. I mean, ten minutes in a playpen was unlikely to scar my sister for life. And if it did leave a scar, it was unlikely to be worse than the scars growing up with my mother would leave.
I knew my mother would come back at some point. Hopefully before Emerald was potty-trained, though after was a distinct possibility. Maybe she and her new husband would be heading back to Los Angeles and I could hitch a ride. With her and the baby. She might even need a sitter.
Having a new stepfather was always a problem. This one was rich, of course. Usually they had some money, but this one really seemed to have a lot. Enough to go bankrupt. Or rather, his company was going bankrupt. Bankruptcy for rich people was like plastic surgery, painful while it was happening but rejuvenating afterward. My guess was David would be rich again by the time my mother reappeared.
It was barely six o’clock in the morning when Opal showed up. My grandmother wasn’t awake yet. TheTodayshow hadn’t even started. I had dressed Emerald in the pink snowsuit my mother had sent. It was labeled nine months, but it fit her just fine. I got her tucked into her car seat and she began to fuss. So I gave her the plastic keys, which I knew would buy me a few minutes.
I put on my puffer coat, my Bassett Hound hat and stepped into my boots. Of course, I wasn’t going with Opal. I’d explain that when she got there then maybe go out to breakfast—though I couldn’t think of anyplace open before seven. Then after breakfast, I’d go to the sheriff’s office to talk with Detective Lehmann.
That was the plan, but then Opal was in the driveway honking her horn. That had to stop, she was going to wake up my grandmother and that wouldn’t be good. I grabbed the car seat and hurried out the back door. I went directly to the driver’s side.
She rolled down the window, and said, “Get in.”
“I’m not going with you.”
“You look like you’re going with me.”
“I’m taking myself out for breakfast.”
“Where? No place is open until seven.”
I didn’t have a good answer to that. Obviously, I wasn’t going to sit out in front of a restaurant in the middle of winter with a baby in the car. So, whatwouldI do?
“I can’t stay very long. I have to go to the sheriff’s office.”
“Get in.”
I might not have, but I noticed my grandmother had gotten up and was now looking out at us through the porch window. I wrangled the baby seat into the back of the ladybug—which, by the way, is challenging enough to suggest it might merit its own Olympic event—and then climbed into the passenger seat.
As she pulled out onto M-22, Opal said, “The visual of you with a baby is really wrong.”
“Thank you. I assume that’s a compliment.”
“It’s not.”
We were silent until we were driving through the village of Masons Bay. As we passed Pastiche, she asked, “How did you find him?”
“I went to see Ronnie, like you asked me to. He said he’d heard about the house they were using.”
“Do you think Ronnie sold it to him? The meth that killed him?”
The was an emphatic yes. Probably. But what I said was, “I don’t know. Does it matter?”
