5
Her name was Drew. Drew Sturdivant. She was nineteen years old.
“Is there a picture?” I asked.
“Short hair. Maybe four to six inches long. Cut kind of choppy. Darker at the roots.”
“Can you tell what color it is?”
“It’s a black and white photo. Probably brown or red. It’s her, Dylan.”
“What else does it say?” I asked.
He read me the article.
Drew’s body was found inside the trunk of a car, which was parked at a used car lot on Harry Hines Boulevard. She was identified as a local exotic dancer, employed by Caligula, a men’s club, also on Harry Hines Boulevard. In her daytime life, she was a student at El Centro College, which is part of the local community college system. A preliminary report from the Dallas County medical examiner’s office suggested manner of death to be murder, cause of death to be “blunt force trauma with a sharp ax-like instrument. Multiple blows.”
I felt my stomachache return.
The police were investigating leads, David was saying. The paper listed a number for a tip line.
“Do you think I’m one of the leads?” I asked. It was a rhetorical question. Of course I was one of the leads.
“Have you heard from the DPD?” he asked.
“The Jackson Five? Not yet, but they’re probably waiting for me at my house.”
“Yeah. I tried your home number first. Where are you, so early on a cold Sunday morning?”
I told him my swimming story with the wet footprints, finishing with the weird garage door lumberjack incident from the night before.
He whistled. “You win the contest for the worst twenty-four hours.”
“Drew won that one, I think.”
“Yeah. Some prize.”
We were silent for a minute, sharing an odd, intimate connection to this real-life girl, a living, breathing human person who had gotten up yesterday morning like she did any other day. And had died at the business end of an ax.
I fought to keep the image out of my brain. I didn’t want it there. But my mind, attracted by some sort of morbid magnetic field, would not cooperate. I could see it happening in front of me, playing out in vivid, full-blown, Fujifilm detail. I felt the most profound sadness for her.
“You must be exhausted,” David was saying. “Want to come out here?” He lived about an hour south of town. “Hide from the posse and get a little rest? I could make you tomato soup and Cheetos. Served up with a cold Dr Pepper. Cold milk and Oreos for dessert. Your favorite.”
A nap on David’s couch and a babysitter lunch sounded absurdly luxurious to me.
“I’d love to, but I couldn’t sleep on a bet, I don’t think. I’m too wound up.”
“How about dinner then? We need do-overs for last night. I owe you midlist wine and a white tablecloth.”
The white tablecloth jarred my memory. I groaned. “I’m supposed to have lunch with my dad today. And his horrible new wife Kellee with two e’s.”
“They’re in town?”
“They flew in for lunch. Their version of a birthday present.”
“Happy birthday. Sorry. I should have said it when you picked up the phone. I was focused on the paper.”
“No, no, it’s fine. Happy birthday, cha cha cha. My birthday’s the last thing on my mind.”
“I didn’t get to give you your present. I was going to give it to you at dinner last night.”
I brightened. “What did you get me?”
“Do you really want to know? Or do you want it to be a surprise?”
“Hm. I think I’ll take the surprise. I’m going to need some cheering up later. I can tell from here.”
“Do they let you bring wrapped gifts into Lew Sterrett Justice Center?”
“Very funny. Hey. Maybe I need a lawyer. Do you think?”
“I’d get one, if I were you.”
“I don’t know any lawyers. I’ve always been so proud of that fact.”
“What about the Pink Ice Queen Lawyer from last year?”
“She works for the university, I think. SMU is going to fire me if I keep getting accused of crimes…” I mused, almost to myself. “I gotta get myself out of this.”
“What time is lunch?”
“Twelve thirty. After church.”
“Your dad goes to church?”
“No, me. I go to church.”
“Are you still going?” he asked.
“To church or lunch?”
“Either.”
I looked at my watch. It was almost nine thirty. I could make the early service. At the very least, I’d have somewhere to hide from the Jackson Five for a few hours.
“I really can’t get out of lunch. And I probably need a Holy Spirit spanking before I spend any time with Dad and Kellee.”
“Want to leave dinner open?”
“That’ll leave you in limbo all day.”
“Don’t mind.”
“Pining for me, I hope.”
“Pining. Yes. Absolutely. And worrying,” he promised. “Lots of worrying.”
“Good. That makes me feel better, actually. I’m needy today.”
“Understandable. Call me if anything comes up.”
I threw the phone in my purse, and then remembered how I was dressed. I looked like a homeless person. My jeans were ripped, my sweater old and pilled, and I had on my favorite ratty pair of thrift shop Converse All Stars. The red canvas ones. From, like, 1977. When Jimmy Carter was president.
Jesus didn’t mind, I’m sure, but I think the people around me were a little taken aback. My church is pretty casual, but I was stretching even those limits today. I tried to cover up the hole in the knee of my jeans with my purse at first—a fringed leather version of a fig leaf, I guess—then gave up and focused on the service. It was about truth, handily enough, which it turns out is your best defense against evil. Nifty little fact to know. At least I had truth on my side.
Church ended at ten thirty. Time to face the DPD. I headed home.
No cruisers were waiting there for me. Detective Jackson had left a message on my machine, however. He wanted me to call when I got in.
Stalling seemed good. I erased the message and threw my purse on the bar stool, then tossed my swim bag into the bedroom and emptied it out onto the bed. I could see my breath almost, it was so cold in my house. I kicked the on-switch on my space heater, then lit the gas heater in the bathroom, holding my hands over the blue flame for warmth. I hung my wet bathing suit on the shower curtain. It would probably freeze stiff hanging there.
My house is almost a hundred years old. Built when the only central heat in Texas was the kind that came from the sun. Other than my state-of-the-art oil-filled space heater, the ancient gas wall unit was the only source of heat in this part of the house. Between the two of them, they did a fairly passable job most of the time.
Striking the match reminded me of my hot water situation. Fighting off a level of rage completely disproportional to the problem at hand, I took my matches into the kitchen and stared at the water heater. I leaned in and listened hard for that annoying knocking sound it makes when it’s doing its job. All I heard was dead, stubborn silence.
“Light,” I said, as though that would help.
I held out my hands, rattling the matchbox and waving my fingers at the Whirlpool insignia. “In the name of Jeeeeesus,” I said in my best TV evangelist voice, “I command thee to light. Give thine heat to mine water.”
I waggled my fingers some more, entertaining myself with the absurdity of it all. Still, if Peter Terry could blow the blasted thing out, why couldn’t God show up just this one teeny-weeny time and cut me a break?
Whatever His reasons, He wasn’t saying. I was going to have to do it the old-fashioned way. I assumed the position and struck a match. As I reached inside the skin of the beast, I noticed for the first time the drippy rust stains that ran down the sides.
It is a rule in the universe that one should never look at an appliance too closely. Especially an artifact generations removed from the moment of examination. Layers of sticky filth concealed what I suspected was formerly white paint. Or porcelain. Or whatever they made water heaters out of in the Stone Age. Maybe it was like a tree. A ring of filth for each year. I could probably saw it in half and find out how old it was.
I blew out my match, unfolded myself, and retrieved my giant, industrial-sized bottle of Zep Orange Industrial Degreaser—invented by God, by the way, not Satan. I cracked open a brand new roll of Dawg Blue Mastiff Industrial Strength paper towels. I was armed and dangerous.
In military terms, what happened next is known as “mission creep”—starting off with one discrete task and allowing it to expand exponentially into an amorphous monster of a project. This is what happens on Saturdays when I run errands. Running out and getting some milk turns into throwing an impromptu dinner party because the produce at the grocery store looks so fabulously fresh, and besides, they have the most wonderful organic, grain-fed beef tenderloin, and wouldn’t it be nice with some roasted potatoes and a mango salad? And, of course, I’ll need new placemats, but I like chargers instead of placemats, and I think Pier One is having a sale…
This is mission creep. It is generally a bad idea.
Ignoring my better instincts, I hosed down the sides of the water heater with Zep and tried to swipe my paper towel over the surface. The paper towel stuck in the goo. I resisted the urge to vomit. I squirted it down again and went to get the vacuum cleaner.
Since I am obsessively tidy—I prefer the term obsessive compulsive “inclination” to obsessive compulsive “disorder” (much less damning)—I have a state-of-the-art vacuum cleaner. It has hoses. It has attachments. It has brushes and nozzles and a tiny little needle-nose device for use in corners. I can practically do surgery with my vacuum cleaner. Or pick up a bowling ball. Whichever the situation calls for.
I wrestled the python tubing, assembled my weapon, and plugged it in, peering under the water heater and plotting the demise of the filthy little archaeological site under there. And then I saw something even more alarming.
A hole in my wall. Behind the water heater. Leading into the poorly insulated space behind the closet.
And pellets. Little brown pellets. Lots of little brown pellets.
Nowhere in the Bible, that I’m aware of, are rodents mentioned as minions of spiritual scourge. But I am convinced that had there been an eleventh plague in Egypt, if the flies, frogs, and boils had failed to convince, God would have sent mice. Hoards of nasty little crawling filthy gnawing mice. And rats. To chew into grain sacks and nest there, leaving their foul little droppings behind as presents. That would have been the fatal blow.
Maybe Pharaoh knew the mice were next. Maybe that’s why he caved after the whole Passover-death thing.
I dropped my vacuum hose with a clatter and yanked open the pantry door. Labels stood at attention on my shelves, spices alphabetized, soup cans grouped into categories by ingredients and use (broth or cream-based, for meals or for cooking).
My pantry was immaculate.
And it had mice. There was the evidence, right down there in the corner. Mouse droppings.
At this point, my obsessive inclinations may have bordered on a disorder. I admit that. I should probably have dropped the entire matter and gone to a Twelve-Step group.
Instead, I started flinging things out of my pantry, letting out little shrieks of indignation each time I spied evidence of the beasts. A chewed hole in my brand new box of Premium Saltines. A rip in the cellophane around my spaghetti. Little brown pellets behind my carton of Hefty Handle-Tie garbage bags. Gnaw marks in my neatly folded environmentally correct, brown, recycled-paper grocery bags.
I broke off periodically to scour the water heater and squirt more Zep Degreaser on it.
In the midst of this madness, I lost all track of time. When the phone rang, I was on my knees, with my can of Comet and my antibacterial cellulose sponge with the green scrubby thingy on it, disinfecting the pantry floor.
I whipped my head around and stared at the phone, then peeled off my rubber gloves and picked up the receiver.
“Hello?”
“Where are you?”
I looked at my watch. It was one fifteen.
“I sort of lost track of time, Dad,” I said.
“Well that’s just rich, Dylan. Here Kellee and I fly all the way up here to honor you on your birthday, taking time out of our very busy schedules. On our one day in the week to be together. Kellee is sitting here with this beautiful gift that she wrapped herself…”
What is she, a five-year-old? She wants a parade for wrapping a gift?
“What do you want to do, Dad? Reschedule? Or I can be there in twenty minutes.”
“We flew up from Houston, Dylan. We’re here. We have a table. We’re waiting for you.”
My dad is a heart surgeon. Possibly in need of his own services. He sounded like he was about to blow a valve or something.
“So you want me to go ahead and come?”
“Isn’t that what I just said?”
“I’ll be right there.”
I hung up without saying good-bye and looked around the kitchen. It was as if an explosive device had gone off in the pantry. Cans, boxes, and bags lay in piles where they’d landed. A package of spaghetti had broken when I tossed it, scattering pasta pick-up sticks on the kitchen floor.
And over there, on the other side of the kitchen, the water heater was gleaming white and spotless, the closet completely devoid of even microscopic traces of dust. The mouse droppings were gone, the hole covered with a plastic Cool Whip lid and duct tape.
The water heater still didn’t work, mind you, but it was clean.
This is the problem with mission creep. All that work and still no hot water.
I stepped over the pantry debris and went to the bedroom and picked out an outfit. Frayed bellbottom jeans, an orange turtleneck, and my purple Doc Martens, which I know my father hates. That’s how mature I am. On my thirty-fifth birthday.
Could be time to go back to therapy.