U Is for Undertow (Kinsey Millhone 21)

Betty Sherrard, the bank vice president and portfolio manager, had offered a solution to the transportation problem. Her son, Brent, was living at home until school started in the fall. He was twenty and worked part-time stocking shelves at Von’s supermarket. He needed the extra money and he was able to tailor his hours to accommodate Walker’s needs. Walker paid him fifteen dollars an hour, plus mileage on his mother’s spare car, a 1986 Toyota. It was all a pain in the ass, but he had no choice.

The woman standing up in front was speaking about the trajectory of her drinking woes, a spiral as relentless as a toilet being flushed, according to her report: First, the family intervention, which had shocked her into good behavior. She’d been one year sober and then her mother died and she’d begun to drink again the day of the funeral. Three months later, she swore off alcohol again, but there were countless falls from grace, each one more degrading than the one before. Her husband divorced her. She lost custody of her kids. She was a mean drunk and her friends had taken to avoiding her. One morning she woke up in her car, which was parked at a shopping mall a hundred miles from home. She had no idea how she’d gotten there. Her purse had been stolen and she’d had to hike to the nearest service station, where she bummed enough money to call and beg her ex-sister-in-law to pick her up. Waiting, she’d finally accepted the fact she couldn’t do it on her own. Now she was fifty-one days clean and sober, which netted her a big round of applause.

Walker thought his circumstances were tame by comparison. True, Carolyn had forced him to leave the house, but he was confident she’d relent. He still saw his kids every chance he got and he still had a job, for god’s sake. He’d messed up badly, but his problems didn’t hold a patch on some he’d heard here. This was a bump in the road, a wake-up call. He’d stumbled off course and now he’d righted himself. All these stories about people losing everything and living on the streets? He sympathized, but his situation was entirely different. One guy had made it clean and sober for five years, two months, and five days. The best Walker could offer up was seven days, not even worth one hand clapping. He’d have felt like a fool if he’d stood up and shared that. Belatedly, he flashed on the fact that while he’d been busy patting himself on the back, he’d forgotten about the girl he’d killed.

Sitting there, he could feel his demons stir. It wasn’t that he wanted a drink as such. It was the option to drink that he found hard to renounce. At some point in the future—five years or ten, he was unclear on the time frame—he wanted to believe he could enjoy a cocktail or a glass of wine. How many special occasions would come and go with him sipping soda water or a Diet Coke, detached and disengaged? Not drinking for the remainder of his life was too extreme a penalty. Surely, he’d regain the privilege once he learned to moderate his intake.

Carolyn would have told him he was kidding himself, but it wasn’t true. He was grappling with his so-called drinking problem and he was doing his best. How much more did she expect? He wanted a drink. He admitted it, especially now with this other business coming to the fore. The subject was like a cracked tooth he kept feeling with his tongue to see if the fissure had progressed.

He checked his watch. Half an hour yet. All he could think about was how burdened he was. Over the years guilt had chafed at him, and now his only relief occurred during that magic moment when a drink went down and the warmth spread through his chest, untying the knots, loosening the noose around his neck. He was losing his capacity to tolerate the weight of anxiety that dogged him from day to day. How would he grow old with such a canker in his soul?

An eternity later, the meeting ended and the room emptied with a clatter of chairs being folded and stacked against the wall. He felt a touch on his arm that made him jump.

“Fancy meeting you here.”

He turned. Avis Jent stood close by, in a spiky blaze of dark red hair, the scent of whiskey pouring off her skin. Shit, he thought, had she come to the meeting drunk? His right arm was still in a sling so he didn’t make a move to shake hands.

Her eyes widened at the sight of his face. “Oh, I love that blend of purple and yellow. The black eyes make you look like a raccoon. You got yourself banged up good.”

“I take it you heard about the accident.”

“Me and everyone else. The whole of Horton Ravine is abuzz.”

“Thanks. I’m feeling so much better for having talked to you.” Walker hadn’t seen Avis since their chance encounter on Via Juliana, that nightmare of patrol cars, police personnel, and rumors of a dead child. He hadn’t read a word in the paper about the incident, unless an article had appeared while he was in St. Terry’s and out of commission.