Happy Policeman by Patricia Anthony Read Free Book Online Page A

tender hue rising in her cheeks. A Summer. Janet would be a Summer. All shallow, pointless energy, hurting without ever realizing. Preordained to be a victim.
    “You made your Avon deliveries last night,” Denny said. “Don’t you remember? You was going by Miss Wilson’s to bring her the toothpaste? And you were late coming home ‘cause she kept talking about being down in her back?”
    “Oh.” A strained smile. “That’s right.”
    DeWitt took a bite of his pea sandwich, found it difficult to swallow, returned the rest to his plate. He needed to escape from his next question. Removing the napkin from his lap, he stood.
    Janet got to her feet. “Where are you going?”
    “Out.” When he opened the door, a cool night breeze hit his face. Shivering, he made his way to his squad car.
    “When will you be back?”
    Janet was framed in the light of the doorway, her blond hair tangled by the wind. He had been married for twenty years, and knew her body better than he did his own: the silken skin at the inside of her elbows; the honey-brown mole on her thigh. Twenty years of sharing a bed, and he didn’t know her at all.
    “I’ll be at Loretta’s. Go on back in the house.”
    He climbed in his car as the kitchen door closed on the light.
    DeWitt drove to the Mobil station. His hands were so unsteady, he dribbled gas on his alligator boots. When the tank was full, he drove east down Guadalupe Road.
    It shouldn’t have surprised him that Loretta’s house was dark, but it did. He parked in the drive and trudged across the grass.
    “Boys?” He stepped up on the porch. “Billy?”
    The yard was aglow from the nearby Line. A fall breeze snuck through the oaks, rattling dead leaves, plucking at the collar of his sweater. “Billy?”
    The door opened at his touch. Entering, he slid his hand along the inside wall. “Police.” He found the switch and flicked on the lights.
    Loretta’s living room was uncompromisingly neat. A folded afghan lay on a striped sofa. A plate of potpourri on a gleaming end table scented the air with apples. Loretta’s trophies dominated one corner of the room. Next to a crystal bowl of worthless dollar bills and uncashed checks stood a line of knitted Homemaker-of-the-Month awards.
    DeWitt’s house was never neat enough for the Homemaker Committee. Janet’s Avon came in a distant second to Loretta’s Mary Kay. The tally of dollars was a barometer not of wealth but of power. Janet, once head cheerleader, once Queen of the Senior Prom, had become an also-ran.
    “Boys?”
    There had been a welcome mat outside the door. Just inside was another, a last-chance warning. He wiped his feet and walked into the kitchen.
    The back door stood open. Across the surface of the no-wax blue-and-white floor, up the matching wallpaper, and over the polished cabinets were splatters of red.
    DeWitt found a pot crusted with spaghetti sauce on the floor on the other side of the cooking island. Bending, he touched a finger to one of the red splatters and brought it to his nose. It stank of old garlic and oregano.
    A sound made him look out the doorway into the backyard. The noise came again, the ring of metal on metal.
    Crouched, he made his way through the kitchen into a bedroom. Halting, he let his eyes adjust to the darkness. It was a boy’s room, he saw, a place Loretta hadn’t tamed. The floor was ankle-deep in dirty clothes, and the walls were festooned with rock posters. By the bed he found an aluminum bat, its handle wrapped with black electrical tape. Hefting it, he crept into the yard.
    Three Torku were capping Loretta’s well in the light of the Line. The closest looked up as DeWitt emerged from the house. Instantly comprehending the threat of the bat, of DeWitt’s aggressive stance, he stopped working and stepped away.
    The other two, shadowy boxes with legs in the semi-dark, paused to stare.
    “What do you think you’re doing?”
    A Torku on the other side of the well took a stick from his