What You Don't Know(3)

“Sump pump’s broken,” Seever says. He’s smiling. Slyly, Hoskins thinks. Like he’s managed to fool everyone. “I’ve been meaning to get a plumber out here, but I haven’t found the time.”

Loren coughs wetly into his fist. He has a cold that won’t let go, not this time of year, and not after all the time he’s been spending outside, sitting in his car, watching Seever and waiting for this moment. Hoskins and Seever stand patiently as he coughs and wipes his mouth with the old tissue he’s pulled from his pocket.

“Think you’re pretty smart, don’t you?” Loren says. “You think you got everybody fooled, but I got your number.”

“What’s that?” Seever says, but there’s something in his eyes, creeping in around the corners. He’s starting to look like a cornered dog, wide-eyed and scared, and this is just the beginning.

“That plug needs to be replaced,” Loren says. He takes off his hat, hands it to Hoskins. Then his coat, and hooks his fingers under the noose of his tie, yanks it loose. “Bully for you, I know how to do it. My old man was a plumber, used to take me out on calls with him.”

“I’ll get someone—”

“Nah, I can drain this puppy right now,” Loren says, because he knows what’s down there, under those floorboards and the standing water. They all do. “It’ll save you some cash, not having to call someone out. Besides, I’m not in a hurry. How ’bout you, Paulie? You got somewhere to be?”

“Nope.”

“And you, Seever?” There’s a black speck on Loren’s teeth, right at the front. A single grain of coffee, or a fleck of pepper. “You got a hot date?”

Seever shakes his head. That sly smile is long gone.

“Great,” Loren says. He bends at the waist, unties his shoes and pulls them off. There’s a hole in his left sock, and his big toe peeks through. He tosses the shoes away, and one bangs against the side of the washing machine. Then he sits, dangles his legs over the square hole in the floor, and slowly lowers himself into the standing water. “I’ll have this fixed up in no time, then we can wait for it to drain. Maybe you could get me some of that coffee, Seever. That’d be nice.”

*

The house gives Hoskins the willies, although at first he can’t decide exactly why. It might be the strange, dank smell that occasionally finds its way to his nose, lurking under the smell of the pine from the Christmas tree or the vanilla-scented candles, or it might be the mountain of glass flower vases in the garage, stacked nearly to the ceiling in one corner, dusty and smeared. In the end, Hoskins thinks it’s probably the photos that bother him the most. There are photos everywhere, framed and nicely matted, mostly of Seever. His wife isn’t in many of them—she’s the one behind the camera, squinting into the black box and clicking, capturing her husband’s image a thousand times. If they’d had children, or even dogs, it might’ve been different. Instead, here’s Seever in sunglasses, holding a glistening trout in two hands. Seever at Disney World, standing awkwardly in the shadow of the huge silver golf ball. Seever at the Grand Canyon, at the Golden Gate Bridge. Always standing close to something important, monuments right over his shoulder. It makes Hoskins nervous, seeing Seever’s face plastered all over the house, his piggy eyes watching everyone who passes.

It’s in the bathroom, when Hoskins is drying his fingers on the stupid little tea towel, trying to avoid the rough patches of embroidered roses, that he notices the photo propped up on the toilet tank. Why anyone would want a photo staring at them while they’re relieving themselves is beyond him, but what does he know? Nothing.

It’s Seever in the toilet photo, of course. Posed in front of his own house this time, the brick walls and big bay window behind him, the house numbers nailed up beside the door clearly visible. He’s smiling, his arms thrown wide, a bouquet of red carnations clutched in one white-gloved hand.

He’s dressed up, like a clown.

“I love visiting those kids in the hospital,” Seever had told them, weeks ago, before he got nervous, when he still thought the two cops following him everywhere was nothing more than a good joke. He’d seen them parked, watching him, and he’d saunter up for a chat, shoot the shit about the weather or how the Broncos might do in the next season. This time, they’d followed him to one of the restaurants he owned and he’d invited them in, sprung for lunch. They sat in a booth, Hoskins and Loren on one side, Seever on the other, and had meatloaf and buttered peas, apple pie and coffee. “Making those kids smile—that makes me feel good.”

They knew all about his volunteer work; they’d watched him at the hospital, going into the rooms where kids lived, either waiting to get better or waiting for their terribly short lives to spin out. There were kids that weighed hardly anything at all and had no hair, kids who’d been burned and beaten, kids who’d been goofing off outside and had broken a leg. At first, they’d been sure Seever was a pervert, a kiddie-diddler on top of everything else, but he wasn’t. The kids liked him, he did a good job. Seever was a weirdo, a fuck-up in most every way, but he was good with kids, he seemed almost normal when he was in costume, bouncing around and squeezing his nose and twisting balloon animals.

“Why a clown, Seever?” Loren had asked, dumping a spoonful of sugar into his coffee. He seemed genuinely puzzled by this. “Most kids are scared shitless by those things.”