Murder For Revenge

I made her a bed on the sofa, then sat and gazed out my bedroom window at the Sticklema

Not nearly enough, I suspected.

I watched her from the porch the next day. I would have liked to help her haul in suitcases and furniture, but my back wasn’t up to it. Her boy did what he could, trying to be the man of the family; finally, Perniski from up the road took pity on her and carried boxes, mattresses, bed frames, and mismatched chairs inside the house. All the same, she did most of the work, and I could see she had spirit.

Cody proved to be a ma

A month after she moved in, she came knocking on my front door. I could tell right off that she was upset, but I pretended not to notice and said, “You have time for coffee?”

“What’s the deal with the water lines?” she said, close to sputtering with outrage. “The toilet backed up and flooded the bathroom. The plumber says that all the houses out here have substandard pipes from the nineteen fifties, and there’s nothing he can do short of replacing everything from the house to the main sewer line. Where am I going to find a thousand dollars?”

I sat her down on the porch swing. “There are some things Wafford didn’t tell you, honey. After he bought the house, he slapped fresh paint on it and put down new linoleum-but it’s still an old house. Don’t be surprised if the roof leaks when it rains. Mrs. Sticklema

Sarah stared at me. “What can I do? I called Mr. Wafford, but he reminded me that he recommended I pay for an inspection. It would have cost three hundred dollars. All I could hear him talking about were the possibilities for flower beds and a vegetable garden, and how Cody could play in the creek.”

“Don’t let him do that,” I said. “Clover Creek may sound charming, but it’s downstream from a poultry plant. Some government men were out here last spring, trying to figure out why all the fish bellied up.”

“Anything else I should know?” she asked grimly.

I hoped she wasn’t the sort to blame the messenger. “There’s been some trouble with the folks in the house up at the corner. A couple of months ago the cops raided it and arrested them for selling drugs. One’s doing time in the state prison, but two of them are back. That’s why I walk up to where the school bus lets the children off in the afternoons. I’ve warned Cody about them too.”

“Thanks, Dea

We didn’t talk for a long while after this, but only because she was busy with her job and her late-afternoon classes. Cody always kept a watch for her out the window, and as soon as her car pulled into the driveway, he’d say good-bye and dart across the road to help her carry in groceries. She and my daughter were friendly enough, but they didn’t really hit it off. Amy, on the other hand, was crazy about Cody; he returned her affection with the lofty sophistication of an older man.

Sarah continued having trouble with the house. When I asked Cody about an exterminator’s van, he said the carpet in his bedroom had fleas and showed me welts on his legs. On another day, he told me that his mother had called Mr. Wafford and then banged down the receiver and apologised for using “naughty” words.

She had spirit all right, I thought. Too bad she hadn’t had common sense as well when she signed the papers in Wafford’s office. It wasn’t hard to imagine how he’d co

“You’re not going to believe this,” Sarah said one evening while we watched Amy and Cody play on a tire swing in the yard. “There are bats in the attic. I saw them streaming out from under an eave last night.”

“You have mice in the garage, don’t you? Bats are nothing more than mice with wings.”

She shuddered. “I called Wafford, and he said the same thing, then gave me a lecture about how they eat insects. From the way he carried on, I thought I was expected to thank him for providing mosquito control. What if one gets downstairs?”

“Mrs. Sticklema

“That’s comforting,” she said dryly. “I was waiting for you to say she died of rabies.”

“Nothing like that,” I said, then stood up and raised my voice. “Amy, you need to get busy on your spelling words for the test on Friday. Go on in the house and get out your book.”

Sarah gave me a look like she knew darn well I was tiptoeing around something, but she called to Cody and they left. I felt bad not telling her, but she had more than enough problems. Sometimes when you buy a lemon, you can squeeze it till your face turns blue, but you still can’t make lemonade.

Later that evening when the telephone rang, I answered it without enthusiasm, expecting my daughter to give me some cockamamie story about how she had to work late.

“Dea

“Hold on.” I put down the receiver and did as she’d asked, then came back and picked it up. “I see him, honey. You say he’s been there half an hour?”

“That’s when I first noticed him. Could he be confused and think I’m our neighbourhood drug dealer?”

“No,” I said, “that’s not his problem. You call the police if you want, Sarah, but I don’t think it’ll do much good.”

“Do you know who he is?”

“Yes, I do. You come over tomorrow after you get home from work and I’ll tell you about him. In the meantime, just ignore him. He’ll go away before too long.”

“Who is he?” she demanded. “How do you know he’ll go away? What if he breaks into the house?”

“He won’t come any closer than he already is,” I said. “You and Cody are perfectly safe. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I hung up and went back to the window. The figure was still there, all slouched over with his hands in his pockets, looking like a marble statue in the glow from the streetlight. I felt bad about making Sarah wait, but it was going to take a lot of time to explain it all in such a way that she wouldn’t get too panicky.

“Damn that Jem Wafford,” I said under my breath.

“Who is he?” Sarah demanded as soon as Cody and Amy ran around ‘the corner of the house.

“Gerald Sticklema

“Just tell me-okay?”

“Well, Gerald never was what you’d call normal. I knew the first time I laid eyes on him that there was something wrong. That was thirty years ago, when Hank and I bought this house. Gerald was close to the same age as my boys, but he never rode a bicycle or came over to play baseball in the summers. A little yellow bus came every day to take him to a special school for children that couldn’t learn like they were supposed to. I made sure none of my children ever teased him, but there were some teenage boys up, the road who used to call him ugly names and throw rocks at him when they rode their bicycles past the house.”

“That doesn’t explain why he was here last night.”