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“Is your mother home?”
“No. She went for a walk.”
“She went for a walk?” I asked, probably sounding a little dubious.
“That’s what I said, isn’t it?”
“I know it’s just… she’s a little pregnant.”
“Dude, she’s a lot pregnant.” Then she couldn’t help but smirk. The little comedienne cracked herself up. “She thinks it’s going to make the baby come. It won’t. She’s been walking all week.”
“I’m going to go look for her. If she comes back, tell her I’m looking for her.”
“Sure. Some creepy old guy is stalking you. Like that?”
“My name is Dom Reilly.”
“I won’t remember it.”
“Then I guess you’ll have to go with creepy old guy.”
That cracked her up.
“Do you have a younger brother or sister?”
“You mean beside the one in my mommy’s belly? No.”
“Why is there a Big Wheel in front of your grandparents’ house?”
“That’s mine. My grandfather’s not all there. He thinks I’m seven.”
“Sorry about that.”
She shrugged and walked away. I walked out of the building onto Woodruff. It wasn’t what you’d call hot, barely into the seventies, but the sun was strong when it broke through the clouds. Which it seemed to be doing more and more. I looked one way down Woodruff, then the other. I didn’t see any pregnant women chugging along.
With the occasional backward glance, I walked down to the next intersection, Rosecrans Avenue. About five hundred feet down, there was a taco place. Anne Whittemore was just passing it. I started walking toward her and soon I could see that she was red-faced and sweating, pumping her arms as she power-walked.
When she got close to me, she said, “I don’t want to talk to you.”
Honestly, I was surprised shecouldtalk.
“Your ex-husband thinks you killed his brother.”
“What?!” She stopped walking and immediately bent over, hands on knees, inhaling deeply.
“I told him I didn’t think you did.”
“Oh, well, thanks for that.”
I was beginning to see where her daughter got her diffident attitude.
“He told me you admitted that you weren’t Pete’s fiancé.”
“I was drugged. I didn’t know what I was saying.”
“You want your husband back, right?”
“Yeah. He’s the father of my kids.”
