way. The point is, Polly, that I’m at the top of the list and you know it.”
“Aren’t you eager to find out who did it?”
“Oh, I’m eager, all right. I’ll go right up to him and shake his hand, whoever he is. But I don’t want to sit in a jail cell while the cops find him, Polly.”
This was a new Francy, one I’d never seen before. In the time we’d known each other, she had always defended him, always underplayed the harm he did her. I stared at her for a long moment, and she looked back defiantly.
“Yeah, I know,” she said. “The penny dropped, eh?”
“When?”
“When he started coming home smelling of perfume, just after Beth was born. When he went out for poker games that I found out later never happened. You know. I could handle the odd smack in the face, but there was no way I could handle not being the most important thing in his life.”
“Geez, Francy. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I wanted it to be not true, I guess. Telling you about it would have made it true, you know?”
“So, who do you think he was seeing?” I said.
“God only knows. A stripper at Kelso’s, maybe. Could’ve been anybody. He wasn’t picky. He married me, didn’t he?”
Francy had never talked like that before. The “poor little me” thing set off alarm bells in my head. It had to be an act. For the cops, maybe, and she was trying it out on me.
“So, back to last night,” I said.
“What about it?”
“After Eddie gave you the book back, what did you guys talk about?”
“What?”
“I mean, Eddie said you had tea and talked. What about?”
“Oh, I don’t know. The usual. His parents. School. Why?”
“How many beers did you give him, Francy? Was he drunk when John came in?”
Francy stood up, her eyes hot and angry. Beth’s mouth slipped off her nipple with a little popping sound, like a cork coming out of a bottle.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.
“Oh, come on. There were beer bottles all over the place. No teapot in sight. If John was staggering drunk when he came in, and Eddie conked him out with a wrench, he wouldn’t have had time to down the twelve or so I saw smashed in your kitchen, would he? I know you didn’t shoot John, so why not tell the truth?”
Francy actually snarled at me. “Just who in the hell do you think you are, Polly? Nancy fucking Drew? So we had a couple of beers. So what? The poor little guy never gets any fun at home. None at all. It’s Jesus, Jesus, Jesus from morning to night. What’s the harm in a couple of beers?”
“None,” I said. “None at all. That’s what I’m saying. John is dead, honey. The police don’t care about a sixteen-year-old drinking beer. They’ll see that there’s no teapot, though. No tea. They’ll smell a lie right away and go looking for more.”
Francy started pacing the floor. “It’s not that,” she said. “I’m not running because of that.”
“Why, then?”
“It’s because I can’t remember. After Eddie and me left with Beth and headed for his parent’s place, I sort of blanked out. I can’t remember a thing.”
“Oh, boy.”
“Yeah. Oh boy.” She was gulping in air. Beth was looking up at her, screwing her face up, getting ready to scream. I tensed. Francy popped the nipple back into Beth’s mouth and sat down again.
“How's that going to sound, eh? We leave and I can’t remember anything until you said at Carla’s that John was dead.”
“Nothing?”
“Nope. Carla said I pulled the phone cord out of the wall. Don’t remember. Carla said I ate a hearty meal and slept in the guest room. Don’t remember that either. Total blank, Polly. Until I get that back, I’m not talking to any cop.”
“Okay. I get it,” I said, getting really scared for her. I’ve heard that trauma can do that—wipe out whole blocks of time. What if Francy did go back and shoot John? What if her memory just wiped it all out?
“Do you think you went back?” I said, quietly.
Francy’s face crumpled. “I don’t know. Maybe. I feel like I could have. I’d decided to leave him. I was real mad. I was also ripped out of my mind, long before Eddie showed up. I could have done it.”
“Could you have driven John to the dump, though? Could you have hurt Spit Morton?”
“Spit? God. Did someone shoot him, too?”
“No, but they whacked him over the head, Francy. You may have had something against John, but you like Spit, don’t you?”
“Sure I do. And hey, Polly, I can’t drive.” With this realization, she seemed to relax a little, but she looked awful. Her eye was still swollen, and her face had gone white again.
“I couldn’t have done it,” she said. “But if I didn’t, then who the hell did?”
Nine
Judas sang a good song
right up until they paid the price,
then he felt awful.
—Shepherd’s Pie
One thing I knew for certain, Francy and the baby couldn’t stay with me for very long. To begin with, there wasn’t the sleeping space. My bedroom was an add-on at the back of the cabin, barely enough room for my futon and a rack for my clothes. The bed was small and would have accommodated a friend only if our acquaintance were truly biblical. I didn’t think Francy would be interested in spooning with me, and I wasn’t about to suggest it. If Francy wanted to spend the night, I’d be sleeping on the workroom floor, which was part of the kitchen, which was part of the living room. In a place as small as mine, “open concept” just means there isn’t any room for walls.
Also, there wasn’t any plumbing. I had a pump outside, and when I wanted a bath, I heated water on the wood stove and bathed beside the fire in the zinc tub I got from Spit. There was no toilet, just an outhouse. On cold winter nights, I used a Victorian chamber pot. (I got it from Rico. When I told him what I wanted it for, he giggled, produced a lid for the pot and only charged me ten bucks.)
Francy had a baby, who would presumably need to be changed and washed occasionally, and after her recent ordeal, Francy would probably need a nice hot bath, but she wouldn’t get one at my place.
Then there was Becker. He would be looking for
