Tips for Living(63)

I rocked slightly, holding on to the bar to keep steady. This meant Roche was asking around about my emotional state, building his case. Would he even look into Stokes as a possibility?

“What else did Detective Roche ask?”

“If I’d noticed anything that might help the police, which I had not. What I thought of Helene. There, I gave him a piece.”

I tried to quell my anxiety and concentrate on Sinead.

“I guess things haven’t been easy for you, either. I saw Al leaving here this morning in the Dirt Busters van.”

Sinead lowered her eyes.

“He didn’t want people to know.” She looked up and lifted her chin toward the Jameson bottle. “I’ll take a wee one.”

I picked up a shot glass from the bar, then hesitated and picked up a second one. I poured whiskey into both. We picked up our glasses, clinked them together and took our sips. I saw Sinead’s tears welling up.

“Oh, Sinead. Is it that bad?”

She nodded.

“Cleaning pools and digging irrigation ditches was one thing,” she said. “But toilets . . . He lost so much business this year that he had to take on this night job, and we’re still short. What with the high prices in town and the taxes going up on our house . . .”

“I had no idea.”

“Things went from bad to worse after he lost Pequod Point. It was his biggest account. The owner used to be a Tidy Pools client before he sold to the Walkers. Apparently, they replaced him with some bloody fella from Massamat their realtor recommended.”

“The Walkers fired Al?”

She nodded. “He hates being a janitor. It’s turning him mean. He’s mad all the time. He’s mad as hell. That’s what he’s been saying ever since he started this night shift.”

I stepped back. He’d been saying what?

“He used to be so good-natured. But now it’s: I’m mad as hell that I’m cleaning other people’s piss and shit; I’m mad as hell that your mum’s coming for Thanksgiving; I’m mad as hell it costs half a day’s pay to fill my gas tank. He’s so knackered he barely eats. He’s always running from one job to another.”

Sinead knocked back the rest of her whiskey while I gaped at her.

“I wanted to surprise him and bring him breakfast before he left,” she said, tapping the brown bag. “I brought his favorite: sausage-and-egg sandwich. But I guess I missed him.” She wiped her eyes. “Sorry, I don’t mean to be such a whinger. Hey . . .” She pointed at my chest.

“What?” I said, finally jolted out of my amazement.

“Look at you. You’re wearing a color.”



I had thought of Stokes as a hater, capable of killing Hugh and Helene. Now there was also Al with an ax to grind against the Walkers. No, the idea was ludicrous. Shy, nervous Al Rudinsky, a guy who worried about tracking mud on the floor? He couldn’t kill anyone, let alone do it over the loss of an account. Or could he? The only thing I felt certain of as the four of us emerged from the dark Thunder Bar into the bright, brisk morning was that Mad as Hell had to be him. He’d used the phrase repeatedly, and he drove like a madman. But why couldn’t he come to me directly and say he was offended? Why did he have to express his anger under a nom de plume?

When I thought about it for a second, the answer was obvious. Shame. Humiliation. What Eric Warschuk said was probably true: “It’s the thing men fear most.”

“Women don’t exactly love it, either,” I mumbled.

“What did you say?” Grace asked.

Grace, Kelly and Sinead stood by the entrance door in the sun, squinting like moles.

“Nothing.”

Kelly shivered in her shorts as she held on to Grace. The skin on her gorgeous calves was covered in goose bumps. Grace bundled her into the Mini and gave her directions and a house key while I tacked the CLASS CANCELED sign to the door. I’d written it on the blank back of a coaster that said, “Due to cutbacks, the light at the end of the tunnel has been turned off.”

Grace returned, shaking her head. “What a thing to go through when you’re pregnant. I’m surprised she didn’t miscarry. I didn’t think Stokes was Helene’s type.”

“You don’t know the half of it, Grace. I have a million things to tell you.”

Grace dropped her chin to her chest and began picking invisible lint off her parka. “I have stuff to tell you, too. Detective Roche came by last night.”

I nodded as my belly turned over. “He was asking about me, right? They searched my house. They commandeered my phone and computer.”

Grace jerked her head up. “Shit!”

“Gubbins is working on getting them back. What did Roche ask you?”

“He asked if I thought you were emotionally stable. I said you were a rock. That you’d gone through hell in the past because of Hugh and you’d kept it together. But lately you’d been depressed.”

“And you felt you had to share that,” I said, recoiling.

Grace was quick to defend herself. “I didn’t want him to hear it from someone else and think I was hiding it.”

“How did he react?”

“He wanted details. ‘How is she behaving differently?’ ‘Is she spending more time alone? Becoming more secretive?’ I told him you were a little colorless, that’s all. I also set him straight. ‘I’ve known her for twenty-three years,’ I said. ‘She’s a good person and godmother to my kids. Don’t waste your time investigating Nora Glasser. There’s a dangerous killer running around out there. Go find him.’”