Twenty

After showering and pulling on fresh clothes, I phone Stoogan at the NOW office to let him know I’m still pursuing the Father’s Day piece.

“Care to share any details with your stressed-out, death-by-a-thousand-meetings editor?” he asks. “Just so I’m not throwing out random cover-my-reporter’s-ass, made-up-bullshit promises of content forthcoming.”

“You’ll love it,” I say with a chuckle. “Adoring daughters searching for their missing father. Kittens and balloons.”

“Kittens and balloons?”

“OK. Maybe not balloons.”

Stoogan sighs. “Why don’t I believe you?”

“Because you’re a distrusting and cynical man?”

“With a nose for bullshit,” he adds.

“Have I ever steered you wrong?”

“You’ve never steered me straight.”

I guffaw at the same time there’s a knock on the apartment door.

“I have to go, but keep the cover slot open. I have a lead on the missing dad to give you that squishy, feel-good ending the publisher craves.”

“Squishy?”

I chuckle. “That’s why you’re such a good editor, boss, you pick up on words like that.”

Stoogan sighs heavily again and hangs up.

Roxanne is in the shower with the door closed. No radio, no singing, just running water. I find it oddly unsettling, like sleep without dreams.

A shower is my favorite part of the day, a time to align my mind and set the mood. Upbeat music helps get the blood flowing and replace some of the worries with fresh and positive thoughts. Bathing in silence, or alone for that matter, does nothing helpful—except get you clean.

I answer the knock at the door to find Mrs. Pennell standing in the hallway.

“I didn’t want to bother you last night,” she says without preamble. “With all the police and such. The nice officer downstairs filled me in and told me everybody was all right, and I’m so glad to hear that. Last time there was trouble, you had that great big knife stuck in your hand and what a mess that was.” She tuts. “But guns? Guns! What’s going on, Dixie?”

“Sorry, Mrs. Pennell.” I squirm. “I don’t know what to say. The police are looking for the man who broke in.”

“Why is it always your place?”

I shrug, not wanting to get into the whole story and cause unnecessary panic. “Maybe they think a single woman is an easy target.”

She clucks her tongue louder in disgust.

“Well, I hope they find him and throw away the key. I’m lucky I have King William on guard, but a gun in my home! Indeed.”

The sound of the shower clicks off.

“Do you need anything else?” I ask.

“Yes, one thing. And I don’t want you to get too self-conscious, but Derek and Shahnaz have asked if they can move across the hall to the empty apartment above Sam and Kristy.”

“Oh? Why? It’s not any bigger.”

Mrs. Pennell points over my shoulder to the ceiling, and when I turn around I immediately see a ray of light from the apartment above shining through a stray bullet hole.

“I can patch that,” I say sheepishly.

“I don’t think that’s exactly their worry, dear,” says Mrs. Pennell.

“No,” I admit. “Guess not.”

The phone rings as Roxanne opens the bathroom door in a barely there towel. She’s at the age when all awkward teenage plumpness should have turned into luscious, head-turning curves, but the woman in front of me is little more than a skeleton wrapped in grayish flesh.

The barbed wire tattoo on her back has companions on her front that make her look like a sadistically stitched doll. The ink speaks to me in a voice that pricks at my heart and sends electrical filaments of doubt deep into my soul. There are wounds here too deep to heal.

The phone continues to ring.

“Do you have clothes I can borrow?” she asks. “My old ones feel dirty.”

“Of course.” I lead the way to the bedroom. “Let’s see what we can find.”

The answering machine clicks on. It’s Stoogan.

“Dix, pick up, what the hell? I just received a police report on a shooting last night—at your address. You didn’t think to mention that? Are you OK? What’s going on? You need to get a cellphone. Jesus, call me.”

I don’t.