V is for Vengeance (Kinsey Millhone 22)

Turning up the front walk, I saw that Henry had already put his garbage bins at the curb, though the regular weekly pickup wasn’t until Monday. I went through the squeaky gate and around to the rear, where I unlocked my studio door and dropped my shoulder bag on a kitchen stool. I turned on the desk lamp and pulled up my pant leg to examine my injury, a move I immediately regretted. My shin now sported a bony protrusion that had an eerie sheen to it, flanked by two wide bruises the color of eggplant. I don’t like playing tag with a luxury sedan. I don’t like being forced to leap between cars as though rehearsing a stunt. I was more pissed off in retrospect than I’d been at the time. I know there are people who believe you should forgive and forget. For the record, I’d like to say I’m a big fan of forgiveness as long as I’m given the opportunity to get even first.

I crossed the patio to Henry’s place. The kitchen lights were on and the glass-paned door stood open, though the screen was hooked shut. I picked up the scent of split pea soup simmering on the stove. Henry was on the phone. I tapped on the frame to let him know I was there. He waved me in and when I pointed at the door, he stretched the long coiled telephone line to the maximum to unhook the screen. He went back to his conversation, which he conducted while gesturing with a ticket envelope, saying, “By way of Denver. I have an hour-and-thirty-minute layover. Connecting flight gets me in at 3:05. I left the return open so we can play that by ear.”

There was a pause while the other party responded in such loud tones, I could almost distinguish the content from where I stood. Henry held the handset away from his ear and fanned himself with his itinerary, rolling his eyes.

After a moment, he cut in. “That’s fine. Don’t worry about it. I can always take a cab. If I see you, I see you. If I don’t, I’ll show up at the house as soon as I can.”

The conversation went on for a bit while I held up my skinned palm, the butt of which was scored with skid marks. He peered at it closely and made a face. Still chatting, he tossed the plane ticket on the counter, opened a drawer, and took out a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and a box of cotton balls.

When his conversation ended, he returned the handset to the wall-mounted cradle and motioned me into a chair. “How’d you do this?”

I said, “Long story,” and then regaled him with a condensed version of the shoplifting incident and my attempt to pick up an ID on the younger woman. “You should see my shin,” I said. “It looks like somebody hit me with a tire iron. Weird thing is I don’t even know how it happened. One minute she was steering straight for me. Next instant I’d levitated, getting out of her way.”

“I can’t believe you went after her. What were you going to do, make a citizen’s arrest?”

“I hadn’t thought that far ahead. I was hoping to pick up her plate number, but no such luck,” I said. “What’s going on? It sounds like you’re taking a trip.”

“I’m flying to Detroit. Nell took a spill. Lewis called first thing this morning and woke me out of a sound sleep.”

“She fell? That’s not like her. She’s usually steady as a rock.”

He saturated a cotton ball with peroxide and dabbed my wound. A light foam bubbled on the edge of the scrape. The wound no longer hurt, but there was something lovely about being tended to by a bona fide mother substitute. He frowned. “She was opening a can of tuna and the cat was winding back and forth between her legs. You know how they do. She went to set his bowl on the floor, tumbled over him, and came down on her hip. Lewis said it sounded like a well-struck baseball flying out of the park. She tried to pull herself up but the pain was excruciating, so the boys called 9-1-1. She went from the ER straight into surgery, which is when he called me. I contacted my travel agent as soon as the office opened and she got me a seat on the first flight out.”

“What cat? I didn’t know they had a cat.”

“I thought I told you about him. Charlie took in a stray a month ago. Skin and bones from all reports, no tail, and half of one ear gone. Lewis was adamant about turning the scruffy guy over to the pound, but Charlie and Nell ganged up and voted him down. Lewis made his usual dire predictions—mange, cat scratch fever, septicemia, ringworm—and sure enough, this morning ‘tragedy struck,’ as he put it. Most of his report was taken up with I-told-you-so’s.” He returned the first-aid items to the drawer.

“But Nell’s okay?”

Henry wagged his hand. “Lewis says they put a fourteen-inch titanium pin in her femur and I don’t know what else. It was tough to keep him on point. I gather she’ll be in the hospital for a few days and then go to rehab.”