15
I left Maria’s duplex thoroughly spooked by our conversation and once again enraged at Peter Terry. The sky started to spit out little icy pellets, which were drumming onto the windshield of my pickup and already sticking to the roads.
Once or twice a year maybe, during what Texans call a “hard freeze,” which means anything below twenty-five degrees, we get freezing rain or snow or some mixture of the two. Every exposed surface ends up coated with a glassy sheet of ice.
Since Dallas has no winter storm equipment—snowplows, sanding trucks, and road salt are not urgent budget items in a city south of the Red River—roads are essentially impassable until the ice melts. The city simply shuts down to wait it out.
This sort of event in Dallas excites a uniformly childish sense of glee. Meteorologists, suddenly thrust blinking into the spotlight and flushed with self-importance, chart the impending storm with morbid enthusiasm. A gossipy string of warnings is passed along by everyone you met the day before. And after the ice storm has arrived, everyone pops out of bed at 5:00 a.m. and flips on TVs and radios to see if schools and businesses have been shut down for a longed-for snow day. If our luck is good, we get to go back to bed, sleep late, and then start a pot of chili sometime that afternoon.
Somehow, I’d managed to miss the buzz completely.
My favorite hardware store is called Elliott’s. I love Elliott’s Hardware because it is a real hardware store, not like those huge national chains that sell very little hardware and are in fact the place to go when you want track lighting or vinyl flooring or maybe a spiffy outdoor grill.
Elliott’s is the sort of place where you can describe some obscure plumbing part from a faucet that was discontinued forty years ago, using words like thingy and doodad and doohickey. And the face of the sixtyish hardware expert you’re talking to will light up and he’ll say, “Follow me,” and he’ll walk you over to aisle twenty-seven and open a drawer of a hundred similar doohickeys and pull one out of a slot and hand it to you. And the part will cost twenty-five cents. And as an added bonus, they’re open until nine on Tuesdays.
I steered my way over there, parked my truck in the lot, which had already been sanded and salted, and scooted in the sliding glass doors at ten minutes to nine.
“Welcome to Elliott’s,” the man said cheerfully. “How can we help you tonight?”
“Mice,” I said.
“You have mice?”
“Or rats. I’m not sure which.”
“How big is the hole?”
I made an okay sign with my fingers.
“Rats,” he said.
“Rats, then. My exterminator is supposed to come tomorrow, but with the weather, he might not be able to get there for a couple of more days. What do you think? Rat poison, maybe?”
“Don’t recommend it,” he said.
“Why?”
“You want rodents dying behind your walls and smelling up your living room?”
“Follow me,” he said, and walked me over to aisle twelve.
“You have your standard rattrap,” he was saying, picking up a sample to show me. “Bait it with peanut butter and clock ’em on the back of the head. Snapping sound can be a problem. Scare you out of your wits in the middle of the night. And then there’s the problem of carcass disposal. Plus you’d need a dozen or so of these little babies to do the job. Wouldn’t be my first choice. Next you have your glue traps, which are essentially trays of industrial glue. Little critters get stuck and either starve to death or rip themselves open trying to get out.”
I winced. “Doesn’t sound too humane.”
His eyes lit up. “Follow me.”
He walked to the end of the aisle and gestured toward the shelf, like Carol Merrill on Let’s Make a Deal. Door number three.
“Repeater Clear Top Multiple Rat Trap. We have two brands. Woodstream or Rover. Either one will do you just fine. Catch you some rats with this little beauty and then drive on over to your enemy’s house and let ’em go.”
“I’ll take it.”
“Excellent choice. How are you for salt? Ice storm tonight. Blue norther rolling in.”
“Definitely need salt.”
“Scraper for your windshield?”
“Yep, need one of those.”
“Flashlights or lanterns in case the power lines snap?”
“I think I’ll use candles.”
“Matches?”
“Sure.”
“What kind of car do you drive?”
“A ’72 Ford pickup.”
“You’ll need sandbags.”
“Roger that.”
He got me fixed up, loaded the sandbags into the bed of my truck himself, refused a tip, and reminded me to fasten my seat belt and drive slow.
Elliott’s renews my faith in mankind. I should spend more time there.
My next stop was the grocery store. I loaded up on chili fixings, of course—it never hurts to hope—along with other sundries I’d need, including peanut butter to bait my new humane Rover brand Repeater Clear Top Multiple Rat Trap. And then I headed home. The roads were already slick, but since everyone else had gotten the word about the storm, I was the only one dumb enough to be out. I had the streets to myself.
My house was near arctic temperature when I arrived. I unloaded groceries and ran around the house kicking on space heaters and lighting the gas fire in the bathroom. I even turned on the gas stove and opened the door—which I know you’re not supposed to do (methane gas or something), but I needed all the heat I could get. I walked over to the water heater closet and leaned in to listen, breathing a quick thank-you to my good friend Jesus. It was knocking just like it was supposed to.
It was late and I’d had a long day, but I wasn’t tired. I was wired. I turned on the stereo, changed into jammies and scooted into my slippers, made myself some hot chocolate (with marshmallows to reward myself for finding Maria Chavez), and sat down to think.
What was Peter Terry up to? I’d articulated it for the first time to myself when I said the words to Maria. Peter Terry was hunting souls. But why Nicholas Chavez? And what did that have to do with Drew Sturdivant? There was no doubt in my mind now that Peter Terry was connected to Drew’s murder. Somehow. The link to Maria Chavez and her son was too strange to be coincidental. With or without Willie the homeless person’s weird prophecy about Maria’s help arriving tonight.
And what was I supposed to help her with, anyway? Protecting her son? How exactly did one go about protecting a five-year-old from a spooky demonic white dude with a slash on his back who enjoyed twisted practical jokes like breaking water heaters while wearing a lumberjack outfit and inserting his name into “Jesus Loves Me”?
“What a sicko,” I said out loud.
My phone rang. I checked the clock. It was almost ten thirty. Who would be calling at this hour?
“Hello?”
“Did you see this coming?”
“Hey, Guthrie.”
“Why is it that the worst specimens are the ones who insist on replicating themselves?” he said. “Have you noticed that? Ever been to a truck stop? Or, like, the state fair?”
“How did you find out?”
“They sent me a T-shirt.”
“World’s Greatest Uncle?”
“It should say brother, for starters. Kellee and her room temperature IQ.”
“It’s about forty-five degrees in my house right now.”
“My point exactly.”
“There’s nothing to do but make peace with it, Guthrie.”
“Why does this bother me so much? I’m an adult.”
“That’s a matter of opinion.”
“Happy birthday, by the way. I forgot. As usual.”
“So did I, almost.”
“What is this? Thirty-six?”
“Thirty-five.”
“We’re old.”
“Speak for yourself. How’s Cleo?”
“She left.”
“Left? What do you mean, she left?”
“I mean she put her clothes in the new red Volvo I bought her and drove away.”
“She left you?”
“Is there another kind? Leaving is leaving.”
“Cleo left you.”
“Only after I asked her to.”
“What happened?”
“What didn’t happen? We never should have gotten married in the first place.”
I tried not to act relieved. One negative, critical person in the family is enough, and since I’d had no success in changing my personality, Cleo had to go.
“I’m sorry, Guthrie. Really. I am.”
“Liar. Besides, don’t be. I can’t stand pity.”
“There’s a difference between pity and empathy,” I said.
“Okay. Feel my pain. Someone needs to.”
I heard him rattle ice in a glass. Guthrie was a gin man.
“Where are you?”
“At the club. She’s at the house picking up the last of her stuff.”
“Don’t drive home, okay? Not if you’ve been drinking.”
“What makes you think I’ve been drinking?”
“Guthrie.”
“Okay. I’ll get a ride.”
“Promise me.”
“Scout’s honor.”
“You got kicked out of scouts.”
“So did you.”
“Not the point.”
“Okay. I swear on my golf clubs.”
“Better. Did she take the cats?”
“Are you kidding? The woman’s not an idiot. We’ve had those cats for half a decade and they still can’t find the litter box.”
I laughed. “Well, at least you won’t be by yourself. Is this just a separation? Or what?”
I heard him order another gin and tonic. “Or what, probably.”
I didn’t know what to say. “Tough week,” was all I could muster.
“A little. What about you? Anything happening down there?”
“Not much.”
“I heard you guys got snow and ice coming.”
“It’s already started.”
“Sticking?”
“Yep.”
“You got chili stuff?”
“Absolutely. Picked it up on the way home tonight.”
“You make good chili.”
I smiled. “We could play poker and listen to old records if you were here.”
“And think up baby names.”
“You going to be okay?”
“I’m always okay.”
“Call me tomorrow and check in.”
“You’re not therapizing me, are you?”
“No. Sistering. You’re my brother. I love you.”
“I don’t think you’ve ever said that to me before.”
“I’m trying to improve my personality and become a nicer person.”
He laughed. “Don’t. I can’t handle too much change at one time.”
We said our good-byes and hung up.
Sometimes at the end of my day, I take inventory. Add up the good, the bad, and the ugly. Most days are at least a little more good than bad. And ugly doesn’t happen too often.
Today had been an ugly day.
On ugly days, I sometimes go see a sad movie and have a good cry later in the bathtub. I skipped the movie this time. I filled the tub, grateful at least for the hot water, squirted in some eucalyptus bath oil for the sinus headache I knew would follow my tears, and sank into the sadness. I cried into my bath water until I couldn’t cry anymore. For myself, for Drew Sturdivant, for Maria Chavez, for Nicholas, and now for my brother. Whose crummy marriage was coming apart around him and leaving him with a houseful of cats he didn’t like.
And then I blew my nose, took some decongestant and some aspirin, and tucked myself in, hoping Scarlett O’Hara was right. Tomorrow had to be a better day.