“Once I found a married dude’s mistress. I told the guy where she was. He left my office, went to her place and beat the fuck out of her for talking about their affair in a bar.”
Dr. Windslow begins to shake his head in denial.
“So this mistress, it’d been few years since porking this married dude. She got drunk in Steamy’s Pub and blabbed that she slept with a guy who had a membership to some country club. I’m sure she bragged about him, said his name, the whole nine yards. The married dude must have had a friend in the bar, because it got back to him. How, I have no idea. Don’t care. She needed four reconstructive surgeries afterwards. I don’t know what she looked like before. But now, wherever in the world she goes she’s the ugliest thing walking down the street.
“I guess the married dude thought there was a quiet understanding that the mistress was not aware of. The affair was a secret, and she wasn’t being secret anymore.”
Dr. Windslow still shakes his head, but as an act. A knee-jerk response. No real reason behind it. Another tell.
Our eyes meet, mine dig into his. “No. I will not take your case.” Firm. Stolid. “But I will be keeping an eye on you. If Denise Carmine, white female, age thirty-two, brown and blue, five-foot-eight, one hundred and thirtyish, divorced, no children, drives a white Toyota sedan turns up beaten or dead, I’ll remember you.”
The good Dr. Windslow smoothes his jacket again and looks very uncomfortable. I should kill him now and spare Denise Carmine the looming threat.
“I do not hunt women for angry, jealous men.”
“You are mistaken about me, Mr. Buckner. But I can see there is no turning back from this point—you believe my motives are soiled—so I bid you farewell.”
I cock the hammer. He takes notice.
“I will be keeping an eye on you.”
His throat clicks again, but this time because he is swallowing hard.
“I do not sleep. And I see everything.”
He walks out.
I do not hunt women for angry, jealous men.
4
“I really ’preciate this, Mr. Buckner.”
Through tendrils of smoke I say: “It’s not a problem.”
Elam Derne sits before me. Abe’s referral. Mr. Derne: late fifties, early sixties. Bottle cap glasses. Coarse beard the color of bleached sand. A gentle air about him despite his hefty build. Thick. Stocky. He could have been saddled and pulled a cart in his youth. Maybe even now.
“Elam?” I drag. “Biblical, right?”
“Yes it is. My mother was extremely Baptist.”
“Catholic myself.” One hand goes to my Saint Michael the Archangel pendant. “Dated a Baptist girl once. She was a huge bitch.”
Avoiding my last comment, Derne clears his throat, then: “My mother was Evangelical. You can tell my by name, and I have six brothers and sisters. Jonah, Adam, Bethel, Daniel, Eden and Zachariah.”
“Impressive.”
He looks uneasy. Not the same way Dr. Windslow looked. I crush out my smoke and grab my notepad.
“Tell you what, just start at the beginning.”
“Sure. Here goes.” He says and readjusts in his seat. Breathes in. Exhales. Even across the desk I can smell the cigarette on his breath. Takes his glasses off, puts them back on.
His narrative: “Let’s see, I guess my wife and I bought the house on Madison back in...oh, ’71 or so. Nixon still had the office when we signed for it. Maybe in ’76 was when the Boothes moved in across the street. Newlyweds. Beboppers. Nice couple; the wife especially. Darla, her name. The husband, Benjamin, good enough fellow but he had a stand-offish quality I never trusted. Still childless at the time. Belinda was born first, not too long after they settled in. Maybe a year or two. Before Ronald Reagan anyways.
“About two years after Delilah came about Benjamin just got up and left. This must have been in ’82 or ’83. What a piece of shit, if you don’t mind me sayin’ so. Piece of shit. I told Anne as soon as we met them—I said, Anne, watch that guy. You can tell by how he keeps his car and his yard he ain’t too keen on responsibility. And damnit I was right. A wife and two little girls depending on Benjamin Boothe and poof! Just leaves. I heard he was incarcerated up north of here some ways, but I never did ask much about it. Between us, I think he was queer.
“Anyways, it was like Delilah was like our own little girl. Anne and I—bless her soul, my wife is very ill these days—we had our two boys and our daughter but Delilah...she was just something special to me. Out of the three of them left in that house, Delilah—even at age two—took her daddy leavin’ them the hardest. Sonofabitch.