There’s nothing as conspicuous as someone sitting alone in a parked car in a residential neighborhood. With any luck, some worried homeowner would spot me and call the cops and then I could have a nice chat with someone in uniform. Mentally, I organized a condensed version of the murder plot so I could tell it succinctly when the time came. The house was quiet. An hour and forty-five minutes passed and the gathering darkness gradually reduced visibility to mush. Lights in houses all up and down the street came on, including Lily Howe’s. Somebody sprayed the neighborhood with barbecue cologne. I was hungry and I wanted to take a leak and I couldn’t decide if I should risk squatting down behind someone’s bush. I don’t feel I suffer from penis envy, but in moments like this, I do yearn for the anatomical advantages.
At 9:23, Lily’s front door opened and Leonard and Marty came out. I leaned forward, squinting. There weren’t any lingering farewells. The two of them got in the car, slammed the doors, and backed out of the drive. I waited until their car had disappeared and then approached the house. The porch light had gone off. I knocked. There was a moment of silence and then I heard the chain slide into place. Lily had read all the manuals on rape prevention. Good for her.
“Who is it?” came the muffled voice from inside.
I reduced my voice to a whisper. “It’s me. I forgot my handbag.”
The burglar chain slid back and Lily opened the door a crack. I pushed forward so fast, the door almost broke her nose. There was a clunk and she cried out, but by then I’d closed the door behind me again.
“We have to talk,” I said.
She had a hand to her face and tears had risen in her eyes, not because of any damage I’d done, but because she was upset to begin with. “She said she’d kill me if I said anything.”
“She’s going to kill you anyway, you twit. What do you think-she’s going to walk off and leave you around to spill the beans? Did she tell you what she did to Wim Hoover? She put a bullet right behind his ear. You’re dog meat. You don’t stand a chance/’
Lily paled. A sob broke the surface like a bubble of air from the bottom of a pond, and then she seemed to collect herself. She closed her eyes and shook her head, like a prisoner faced with the rack. She didn’t care what I did to her, she was not going to talk.
“God damn it! Tell me what’s going on!”
Her expression hardened and I got a sudden glimpse of what she must have been like as a kid. Leonard’s sister knew how to deal with bullies like me. She became stubborn, passive, a defensive stance she’d apparently perfected over the years as a way of warding off attack. She simply withdrew, pulling in on herself like a mollusk. She must have been threatened routinely as a child with everything from tetanus shots if she didn’t wash her hands every time she peed, to police arrest if she didn’t look both ways before she crossed the street. Instead of learning the rules, she’d learned to disappear.
To my amazement, she crossed to one of the turquoise chairs and sat down without another word. She picked up the remote control and flicked the television on, moving through six channels until she found a sitcom she liked. She was going to tune me out. I went over to the chair and hunkered beside her, talking earnestly while she kept her face to the screen. She watched intently as a buxom platinum blonde in a tank top proceeded to put together a birthday cake.
“Mrs. Howe, I’m not sure you understand what’s going on here. Your sister-in-law has killed two people and no one seems to be aware of it but us.”
Flour puffed up in a big cloud, obscuring the blonde’s baby face. Befuddled, she’d apparently used baking powder and yeast, causing the dry flour to explode. The laugh track was cranked up to “hilarious.” Oh that gal! Wasn’t she a screech! Lily smiled faintly, reminded perhaps of baking disasters of her own.
I touched her arm. “We’re running out of time, Lil, because know what? I think Marty Grice is going to double back and kill us too. She’ll have to.”
No response. Maybe what I said had no more reality for her than this bimbo with the birthday cake. She was cracking eggs now, getting splatted in the face with yolks. Simple laws of nature were being violated here and she was the butt of the joke. In walked the husband. His mouth fell open at the mess she’d made. New paroxysms of laughter erupted. I wondered if anything in the real world had ever struck me with such force.
I said, “Where did they go just now? Are they leaving town?”
Lily laughed aloud. The blonde had turned the mixing bowl upside down on her husband’s head. She showed him. A few bars of the show’s dizzy theme song played and the station cut away to the commercial. I reached over and pressed the volume button, extinguishing the sound. In silence, a dog skidded across the linoleum with a can of chopped liver in pursuit.
“Hey,” I said, “Leonard’s in trouble. Are you going to help him or not?”
She glanced over at me, and I saw her lips move. I leaned closer.
“Excuse me. What?”
The strain was showing in her face and her eyes seemed unfocused. She watched me with all the concentration of a drunk, dependent and out of control. “Leonard never hurt anyone,” she said. “He had no idea what she was doing ‘til it was too late.”
I thought about Mike’s report of Leonard’s passion for his wife. I didn’t see him as an innocent victim in all of this, but I kept my big mouth shut. “As long as he knows anything, he’s in danger. If you’ll tell me where they’re going, I can get him out of it.”
She spoke in a whisper. “Just to Los Angeles ‘til the new passport for Marty comes through, and then they’re flying to South America.” Her eyes filled with tears. “I might never see him again,” she said. “And we were always so close. I can’t turn him in. I can’t betray him, don’t you see?”
“You’re trying to do what’s best for him, Lily. He’ll understand.”
“It’s been awful. It’s been a nightmare. When you showed up, I thought he’d die of fright. He nearly had a heart attack and that’s when she came back. She thinks you took Elaine’s passport and she’s furious at the delay. He’s afraid of her. He’s always been frightened by the fits she throws. …”
“Of course he has. I’m afraid of her myself. She’s nuts. Do they have the bags in the car with them?”
She was breaking down now, caving in. The notion of Leonard’s desertion caused too much pain and the image of packed suitcases cracked her heart. It was all too much. What difference did any of it make now that he was leaving her? “They’ve gone off to pack,” she said. Her voice came out in a gasp and her nose had started to run. “That’s were they went. The motel out by the pass and then the house. They fought about it, but she wouldn’t leave it behind, because it was evidence.” “Leave what?” “The … uh … you know…” “The murder weapon?”
Lily nodded and nodded again. I didn’t think she could stop. It was as if the cords in her neck had come loose and her head was destined to wag indefinitely. She looked like one of those bobble-head dogs people have perched up in the back windows of their cars.
“Lily, listen to me. I want you to call the police. Go to a neighbor’s house and stay there until somebody comes. Do you understand? Come on. Do you need anything? A sweater, a handbag?” I wanted to scream at her to hurry, but I didn’t dare.
She was looking at me with washed-out, worried blue eyes, her gaze as trusting as a dog’s. I got her to her feet and flipped the TV off, and then bundled her out the front. I scanned the street, but there was no one in sight. I couldn’t believe Leonard would let Marty hurt her, but we all knew who was in charge. In some ways I felt as if I was wasting time, but I had to make sure Lily Howe was safe. We went up to the first house that showed a light, a cedar-shingle place two doors down.
I rang the bell. Some man opened the door and I pushed her forward, explaining that there was trouble and she needed some help. I urged Lily to call the cops and then I left. I wasn’t sure if she’d do it or not.