Behr cracked the window and allowed some winter air to blow into the car as he drove home along I-74.
The trip back from bluff country was six hours plus. He’d planned on leaving before sunup so he could get home comfortably during daylight, but the bottle of single-barrel bourbon Les had pulled out to celebrate his successful hunt had slowed Behr down by an hour that morning and the light was starting to fade by the time he neared Indianapolis and home.
He and Les had passed a pleasant final evening. They’d hung the buck on a gambrel to drain at the landowner’s barn until morning, when Les would take it to the butcher. Then they’d cleaned up and had gone for dinner at the good local restaurant they’d saved for the last night and talked about their lives over T-bones.
“I love them,” Behr said of Susan, his girlfriend and the mother of his son, Trevor, “that’s a fact. But it became clear pretty quick that that’s not enough to make things go smooth between her and me.”
“Well …” Les said.
“She moved out with Trevor after three months, when I’d healed up and my wing was working again,” Behr continued. He moved the arm and tested the clavicle that had been pulverized by buckshot half a year back.
After surgery, Behr had spent countless agonizing hours on “The Rack,” which was what he called the continuous passive-motion chair he’d rented, painfully regaining the mobility in his shoulder joint, as well as doing isometric exercises for strength. He was about ready to graduate to real weight training again and looked forward to it despite knowing how much fresh pain was coming his way.
“My place was never intended to be a home. We were all supposed to move to the new place together. But I … my job … if you can call it that—hell, I’ve only caught two cases in the past few months—doesn’t particularly lend itself to a happy family.”
“Well …” Les said again, tilting back his bourbon.
“So there’s the money thing on top of the rest.”
“Sure don’t help.”
“It never mattered before, but now … a little breathing room would be nice. To be able to provide all the things for ’em that they should have,” Behr said. “But I’ve tried the kind of jobs that make that happen, and you know …” Behr didn’t really have to go on. Les had been in the service as a young man and had then spent his life running a construction company, and his knowing, darting eyes had seen it all.
“Frank, if there’s one thing I’ve learned,” Les said, “it’s that pleasing everyone is pretty damn near impossible, but pissing everyone off is a piece of cake.”
Behr could only raise his glass to that. They laughed and pushed their plates away and accelerated the bourbon.
Behr clicked on his blinker and exited onto 465 to skirt Indianapolis and head toward his place when a woman’s face on a large billboard filled his windshield. She was a bit younger than Susan, also a blonde, though the woman on the billboard had more dark roots in her hair. The sign wasn’t an advertisement. There were words in block print along the bottom that read:
DO YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO KENDRA GIBBONS? REWARD FOR INFORMATION LEADING TO ANSWERS, ARREST, CONVICTION: $100,000.
Good luck with that flashed through Behr’s mind. The woman’s eyes were sparkling and alive. There was the hint of someone’s arm wrapped around her shoulder. Perhaps the picture was taken at a party and cropped. The billboard was visible in the passenger window for a moment, and then it was gone from Behr’s peripheral vision and thoughts, his concentration fixed in front of him. He decided not to head home, but to go see Trevor instead.
Behr knocked on Susan’s door and entered to find her preparing dinner.
“Hey! You’re back,” she said, turning her face toward his for a kiss before resuming the chopping of red peppers. Even though they were living separately, they were doing their best to try to make it work. A wok was on low sizzle on the stove and smelled delicious.
“There he is,” Behr said, crossing to the Pack ’N Play where his son, Trevor, sat, banging away with a block on a shape-sorter toy. The boy smiled up at him. “That’s a triangle, son. It goes in this slot.” Behr helped him and the wooden piece dropped away, then he picked the boy up and turned toward Susan. “Trying to fit the wrong peg into the round hole—just like his old man.”
“He’s six months old, what’s your excuse?” Susan asked.
Behr didn’t answer and instead lifted Trevor, tossing him aloft, pretending to miss the catch, before grabbing him up. The boy squealed in delight. Behr stared into his eyes and thought of Tim, his first son, long gone now, as he did every time he saw Trevor. Surging joy and piercing pain mixed inside him. It was something he’d been unable to escape in the past six months and doubted he ever would.
“So how’d it go?” she asked.
“Good,” Behr said, turning toward her. “Weather was perfect. Les got a big one. I didn’t fill. But it was good.”
“All right, a long walk in the woods then,” she said.
“Pretty much,” Behr said, his attention pulled to the television, which was tuned to the news. There were a slew of official vehicles behind Sandra Chapman, the reporter from WTHR, who was doing a stand-up from a familiar-looking park playground.
“Is that … that looks like Northwestway. What happened?”
Susan glanced over. “They found a body out there in the park. A woman. It’s been all over the news while you’ve been away.”
“Murder?” Behr asked.
“Yeah. Cut up in pieces. Awful.”
“Christ,” Behr said, turning away when the news switched back to the anchors and the next story, about a local high school basketball all-star team.
“I’m making stir-fry. You want to stay?”
“Sure.”
Behr sat at the table and bounced Trevor and watched Susan move about the kitchen as she finished preparing the meal. She was nearly back to her pre-baby weight, just a bit of extra fullness remained around her hips and breasts. Behr saw her wrestle with the cork on a bottle of Pinot Grigio.
“Trade you,” he said, handing her Trevor and opening the wine.
She poured and served, after putting the baby in a little bucket seat that rested on the table. Behr drank the white wine to keep her company even though he didn’t like it much. As they ate, they talked almost solely of Trevor and his activities and accomplishments, like rolling over and commando crawling, which were limited but endlessly fascinating to them. They finished eating and cleared the dishes, and then gave the boy a bath together. She fixed the milk while Behr read him Show Me Your Toes. Then Behr fed the boy the bottle, passing him back to Susan so she could burp him and put him down.
When all was quiet and they’d closed the door to his room, Susan bumped up against Behr in the hall with intent. He put his hand behind her head and pulled her in for a kiss. He tasted the wine on her lips and felt her respond. Soon they found their way to her bedroom and their clothes came off.
Afterward, once they’d dozed for a while, Behr’s mind returned to a state of restlessness. It was the crossroads moment of whether to head home or to stay where he was and try to go to sleep for the night. None of this was unexpected. A cycle of domestic bliss that came to its ultimate, restive end was their routine of late. Another moment passed and Behr extricated his arm from beneath her and swung his feet to the floor.
“You have an early morning?” Susan asked from half slumber as he dressed.
“They’re all early,” he said. It was true. Even though he wasn’t currently working cases, his nights often dragged on late before he managed to get in bed, and he was up long before the sun.
“Lock the door on the way out,” she said.
“Yep,” Behr said, bending and kissing her on top of the head. He stopped in Trevor’s room. It smelled of baby lotion and diaper ointment. He stood over the boy and watched his tiny chest rise and fall rhythmically. Behr reached in and touched his son’s hair, which was smooth as corn silk, and then he left.