Rose Madder

“It’s Rosie McClendon again,” she said.

“We got cut off.” She took a calculated pause, then laughed nervously.

“Oh hell, that’s not exactly true. I got excited and pulled the phone jack out of the wall. Things are a little crazy here right now.”

“Yes, ma’am. An ambulance has been dispatched to 897 Trenton, as per request Rose McClendon. We have a report from the same address of shots fired, ma’am, is your report a gunshot wound?”

“Yes, I think so.” “do you want me to co

“I want to speak to Lieutenant Hale. He’s a detective, so I guess I want DET-DIV, or whatever you call it here.” There was a pause, and when the 911 operator spoke again, he sounded a little less like a machine.

“Yes, ma’am, Detective Division is what we call it-DET-DIV. I’ll put you through.”

“Thanks. Do you want my phone number, or do you trap calls?” Definite surprise this time.

“I’ve got your number, ma’am.”

“I thought you did.”

“Hold on, I’m transferring you.” As she waited, she picked up the bottle of Pepsi and wafted it under her nose, as she had the other, much tinier, bottle. She thought she could smell just the slightest tang of bitterness… but perhaps that was only her imagination. Not that it mattered. Either he’d drink it or he wouldn’t. Ka, she thought, and then, What? Before she could go any further with that, the phone was picked up. “detective Division, Sergeant Williams.” She gave him Hale’s name and was put on hold. Outside her room and down the hallway, the murmuring and the groaning replies continued. The sirens were much closer now.

“Hello, Hale!” a voice barked suddenly into her ear. It didn’t sound at all like the laid-back, thoughtful man she had met earlier.

“Is that you, Ms McClendon?”

“Yes-”

“Are you all right?” Still barking, and now he reminded her of all the cops who’d ever sat in their rec room with their shoes off and their feet smelling up the place. He couldn’t wait for information she would have given him on her own; no, he was upset, and now he had to dance around her feet, barking like a terrier. Men, she thought, and rolled her eyes.

“Yes.” She spoke slowly, like a playground monitor trying to calm a hysterical child who has taken a tumble from the jungle gym.

“Yes, I’m fine. Bill-Mr Steiner-is fine, too. We’re both fine.”

“Is it your husband?” He sounded outraged, only a step or two away from outright panic. A bull in an open field, pawing the ground and looking for the red rag which has provoked it.

“Is it Daniels?”

“Yes. But he’s gone now.” She hesitated, then added:

“I don’t know where.” But I expect it’s hot and the air conditioning’s broken.

“We’ll find him,” Hale said.

“I promise you that, Ms McClendon-we’ll find him.”

“Good luck, Lieutenant,” she said softly, and turned her eyes to the open closet door. She touched her upper left arm, where she could still feel the fading heat of the armlet.

“I have to hang up now. Norman shot a man from upstairs, and there may be something I can do for him. Are you coming over here?”

“You’re damned right I am.”

“Then I’ll see you when you get here. Goodbye.” She hung up before Hale could say anything else. Bill came in, and as he did, the hall lights came on behind him. He looked around, surprised.

“It must have been a breaker… which means he was in the cellar. But if he was going to flip one of them, I wonder why he didn’t-” Before he could finish, he began to cough again, and hard. He bent over, grimacing, holding his hands cupped against his bruised and swollen throat.

“Here,” she said, hurrying across to him. “drink some of this. It just came out of the icebox, and it’s cold.” He took the Pepsi, drank several swallows, then held the bottle out and looked at it curiously.

“Tastes a little fu

“That’s because your throat’s all swollen. Probably it’s bled a little, too, and you’re tasting that. Come on, down the hatch. I hate hearing you cough like that.” He drank the rest, put the bottle on the coffee-table, and when he looked at her again, she saw a dumb blankness in his eyes that frightened her badly.

“Bill? Bill, what is it? What’s wrong?” That blank look held for a moment, then he laughed and shook his head.

“You won’t believe it. Stress of the day, I guess, but…”

“What? Won’t believe what?”

“For a couple of seconds there I couldn’t remember who you were,” he said.

“I couldn’t remember your name, Rosie. But what’s even crazier is that for a couple of seconds I couldn’t remember mine, either.” She laughed and stepped toward him. She could hear a trample of footfalls-EMTs, probably-coming up the stairs, but she didn’t care. She wrapped her arms around him and hugged him with all her might.

“My name’s Rosie,” she said.

“I’m Rosie. Really Rosie.”

“Right,” he said, kissing her temple.

“Rosie, Rosie, Rosie, Rosie. Rosie.” She closed her eyes and pressed her face against his shoulder and in the darkness behind her closed lids she saw the u

Lieutenant Hale lit a cigarette without bothering to ask permission, crossed his legs, and gazed at Rosie McClendon and Bill Steiner, two people suffering a classic case of lovesickness; every time they looked into each other’s eyes, Hale could almost read TILT printed across their pupils. It was enough to make him wonder if they hadn’t somehow gotten rid of the troublesome Norman themselves… except he knew better. They weren’t the type. Not these two. He had dragged a kitchen chair into the living-room area and now sat on it backward, with one arm laid over the back and his chin resting on his arm. Rosie and Bill were crammed onto the loveseat that fancied itself a sofa. A little over an hour had elapsed since Rosie’s original 911 call. The wounded upstairs tenant, John Briscoe by name, had been taken to East Side Receiving with what one of the EMTs had described as “a flesh-wound with pretensions.” Now things had finally quieted down a little. Hale liked that. There was only one thing he would like more, and that was to know where the hell Norman Daniels had gotten himself off to.

“One of the instruments is out of tune here,” he said, “and it’s screwing up the whole band.” Rosie and Bill glanced at each other. Hale was sure of the bewilderment in Bill Steiner’s eyes; about Rosie he was a litde less sure. There was something there, he was almost sure of it. Something she wasn’t telling. He paged slowly back through his notebook, taking his time, wanting them to fidget a little. Neither of them did. It surprised him that Rosie could be so still-if, that was, she was holding back-but he had either forgotten an important thing about her or not fully taken it in to begin with. She had never actually sat in on a police interrogation, but she had listened to thousands of replays and discussions as she silently served Norman and his friends drinks or dumped their ashtrays. She was hip to his technique.

“All right,” Hale said when he was sure neither of them was going to give him a string to pull.

“Here’s where we are now in our thinking. Norman comes here. Norman somehow manages to kill Officers Alvin Demers and Lee Babcock. Babcock goes into the shotgun seat, Demers into the trunk. Norman knocks out the light in the vestibule, then goes down into the basement and turns off a bunch of circuit breakers, pretty much at random, although they’re well marked on the diagrams pasted inside the breaker boxes. Why? We don’t know. He’s nuts. Then he goes back to the black-and-white and pretends to be Officer Demers. When you and Mr Steiner show up, he hits you from behind-chokes hell out of Mr Steiner, chases you guys upstairs, shoots Mr Briscoe when he tries to crash the party, then breaks in your door. All right so far?”