Stress Test Ch. 39

When the sound of the garage door woke Sandy, she shook her head to clear it and ran to the living room. She pulled back the drapes just in time to see the Impala disappear around the bend in Rollingwood Drive.

She slumped onto the sofa. How could Marti steal her car after Sandy had tried to help her? How could anyone just take something that big that wasn't theirs? How could anyone think they would get away with that? Why would anyone want the Impala anyway? She never bought more than half a tank of gas, figuring the car probably wouldn't last long enough to use it.

Sandy looked for a more comfortable answer. Maybe Marti just needed to get something from Thrift Aisles. No. She didn't know the neighborhood well enough to find the store. In fact, she didn't even know what neighborhood they were in. She'd kept her head down all the way from the park.

Marti's face and hair reminded her of Jennifer, but Jennifer would never have grown up like that. Maybe some people were just born to be good and some were born to be dirty double-crossers. The only trouble was you couldn't pick them by looking at them.

Stephen X got right to the point when he came home. "Where's your car?" he demanded before he'd even put down his brief case.

Sandy felt strangely calm as she told him, "I let a friend borrow it."

"A friend? You let a friend borrow it?" Stephen X tried to decide which angle would give him the greatest advantage. "Who?"

"Marti—"

"Who the hell is he?" Stephen X moved closer to her. "What? Are you screwing him? You must be to go around giving him your car."

"He's a she." Sandy folded her arms and came forward a step. "And I didn't give it to her. I let her borrow it."

Stephen X looked confused because Sandy had not backed up. "Who is this Marti? I've never heard of her. Does she have car insurance?"

Sandy just looked at him, which gave him the moment he needed to gather his thoughts. "Your insurance policy doesn't cover her, you know. She kills somebody in that car and you're responsible for every penny of damages. You should know better than that with those crappy brakes you've got on that Impala." He wagged his finger at her. "You know what the trouble with you is, Sandy?"

"I guess I do." Suddenly, everything fell into place and she almost felt like smiling.

All her life, the Jack Gores, the Stephen X Skinners and men like Marti's boyfriend had been committing atrocities against her and her world. Some piece—maybe just a very tiny piece of their heart or soul—was missing or broken. Maybe that precious flicker of conscience is what defines the human being. It's much more important than opposable thumbs or the ability to reason.

They had even absolved poor, sweet-natured Roscoe by blaming his death on a dark conspiracy of government and police instead of his fatal pig-headedness.

The Sandys and Martis of the world, on the other hand, saw terrible things unfolding around them. When guilt bounced off the guilty, they stood by, ready to pick it up.

Sandy had seen in an instant that Marti had to take every necessary step to escape from her boyfriend. It had taken a little longer to recognize herself in the same situation. That awareness calmed and strengthened her.

Stephen X raised his finger higher. "The trouble with you is you just don't think, Sandy."

She brushed his finger aside with the back of her hand. "Oh, but I do," she said. "I think I'm sick to death of you. I'm sick of puny, little, frustrated cowards. Sick of being treated like a slave and a whore."

She stepped forward, pressing her hand against his chest until he moved back. "I'm sick of your drinking and your hangovers and your tantrums. Sick of praying that Saury won't wake you up when you pass out on Saturday afternoons. Sick of hearing your voice when I pick up the phone. Sick of wondering what we ever did to deserve a sorry bastard like you.

"That's why I called a lawyer this morning," she lied, pushing him back another step so that he flopped over the arm of the easy chair. "I'm filing for divorce."

Stephen X struggled to his feet and straightened the knot of his tie. "You better get a reality check before you start shooting off your mouth, sister. There's no way you can divorce me. It would take your whole damn paycheck just to keep the lights on in this house. You can't even afford a good enough lawyer to keep the judge from giving me the house and Saury, too. I'll see you pushing a shopping cart full of rags down Westmore Avenue."

"Fine, fine, fine." Sandy exaggerated the nod of her head. "Now get the hell out of here."

Stephen X looked so surprised that for the first time in Sandy's life she was not afraid to turn her back on him. She went to the phone and felt free of all those terrible weights that had dragged her down for so many years. Her chest felt clean and the air tasted sweet.

For the first time, she knew there was nothing he could do to her.

As she dialed Linda's number, she heard Stephen X open the front door. She was used to hearing him speak nonsense, but she cocked an ear when he said, "Whoever you are, you've got the wrong house."

She looked over her shoulder and saw Stephen X standing in the doorway. He cleared his throat with two short hacks followed by a longer, harsher one. "Look, I haven't got time for this," he said.

Sandy heard Linda's voice on the line just as the first bullet exploded from Stephen X's back and buried itself in the wall. He shrugged and coughed before the second bullet slammed him against the hardwood door.

Stephen X's head turned towards Sandy with his eyes bulging and his jaw twitching. His legs sagged and he slid down the door until he was sitting in a pool of blood.

The third bullet hit the side of his head. It sprayed a fan of blood over the dark, splintered wood and left him still.

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Billey Elwood leaned against the black post of the railroad trestle and panted without taking in any air. Sweat collected like dew drops on the patchy, fine stubble that covered his jaw. He peered into the darkness up and down the creek and wondered where Uly had gone.

His right hand still tingled, as if he'd slept on his arm, cutting off the blood. It didn't hurt, but the feeling made him want to cry.

Seeing his daddy shoot rats and snakes, or even shooting his daddy's charred body could not prepare Billey for this.

Billey had been standing on his mama's porch trying to decide what to do next when the door opened. The man had squinty little pig eyes, just like Uly said, and he looked like he'd never smiled in his life.

Billey felt like he was shooting his daddy with the first bullet. It twisted the man up like a slug crawling through salt. Billey fired twice more. But it didn't make him feel good like he thought it would. It made him feel sick, the way seeing Black Wolf get shot did.

He ran without even seeing his mama. He had to puke in the lawn a little bit before he could get into the pickup.

When Uly finally met him at the trestle, he told him everything that happened.

"You did a good thing, Billey," he said.

"Then why do I feel so bad?"

"Sometimes it hurts to make things right." Uly patted his shoulder. "But don't you worry, you'll get plenty of rewards now.

"Only thing is, Billey, Satan don't always pay up on his debts right away."

"What do you mean?"

"It's real complicated stuff, but some folks might think you were just workin' for Satan, when you were actually doin' business for God and Satan both. What that means is some folks might think you done something bad.

"Best thing is, you grab a ladder on the next freight train that slows down for this here trestle. You ride a couple days and find a new place to live for awhile."

Billey rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands. "Where does the train go?"

"They go ever' which where, but don't you worry. They all wind up back here sooner or later, ever' one of them."

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The good cop/bad cop routine would never work with Sandy. The big detective chewed an unlit cigar and wore a baseball cap with shirt sleeves and suspenders. If his mission was to bully her, then that part went like clockwork. But the shorter detective, the one who was supposed to gain her confidence, wore an immaculate green three-piece suit that might have come out of Stephen X's closet. She wouldn't trust him with the time of day.

From their questions, Sandy realized that the whole world knew those awful things she thought were secrets. The detectives recited a thousand rumors of her alleged infidelities that had made the rounds at Stephen X's office. They quizzed her about reports from the women at ATI that she kept to herself and came to work with bruises. Miss Busse at Kid'n'Kaboodle had always thought Sandy was a little bit strange. The cops wondered where her car was.

It all seemed so stupid. She told them everything she knew about Stephen X's death in the first fifteen minutes. But they went over and over the same questions. It made her think of the way Stephen X used to lock her in the bedroom. "Say that you love me," he'd droned. "Say that you love me."

At one point, the big detective tipped the cap back on his head and took the cigar out of his mouth. "How much does it cost to get somebody bumped off in this town?"

"I don't know," Sandy said wearily. "You don't bother me that much." Then she became angry. "What is this? Am I a suspect? Some loony is out there with a gun. He knows where my son and I live. And you guys aren't giving me the feeling that you have any idea how to catch him."

"No, Mrs. Skinner, you're not a suspect," the short guy said softly. "We're just gathering information. It's just a routine part of the investigation."

"How do you know it was a man?" the tall guy asked.

"What?"

"You said we don't have any idea how to catch him. Did you see a man?"

Sandy shook her head and wondered what life was supposed to be like.

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Go back to Chapter 1 of Stress Test.

Read the next chapter.

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