Clouds came in low, dark, thick enough to awaken hundreds of sodium-vapor lamps well before their usual hour, Teddy Camel standing at the window of his office looking out across those acres of ugly yellow orange illumination. When he heard Annie in the other room he went to the connecting door, knocked, gave her time to collect herself, then went in.
She’d put the blue dress back on but not her shoes, Annie sitting on the edge of the bed looking embarrassed like a woman who’d gone home drunk with a man whose name she couldn’t recall.
Camel asked how she was feeling, she said fine but she spoke in a very small voice.
Going over to sit next to her he almost asked what she meant when she said, right before passing out, that she was sorry about their baby … Annie had gotten pregnant that summer they spent together fourteen years ago when she was twenty-one and he was thirty-six? And never told him? That’s what all those phone calls were about, the calls he never returned? But instead of going into any of that he said he had some information on Cul-De-Sac. “You feel like talking just yet?”
She slipped off the bed and walked to the sink, washed her hands and face, dried off with paper towels, then turned around. “I have to call Paul, see if he’s okay … tell him where I am.”
“Why don’t I borrow your truck, drive to Cul-De-Sac, get your husband, bring him back here, maybe we can thrash it out what he and that other guy are up to.”
“Thrash it out?”
“Talk it out.”
“No I think you meant what you said the first time, you can thrash the truth out of anyone can’t you?”
Why was she mad at him? “I could try to get to the bottom of it, yeah.”
Annie checked her watch. “It feels a lot later than five.”
“Overcast. So what do you think, bringing your husband here?”
“I’m not sure how to explain you to Paul.”
“Is he jealous?”
“He’s a man.”
“I meant—”
“He gets jealous, yes. When we were first married he wanted to hear about my old boyfriends.” Paul would actually get sick to his stomach listening to her but still kept insisting Annie tell him everything.
Teddy wondered what she had told her husband about that summer fourteen years ago.
“I have to call him right now.”
“The phone’s in the other office.”
Annie went to make the call but returned almost immediately, the line was busy. She sat next to Camel as he laid out what he’d learned about the homicide at Cul-De-Sac seven years ago. Camel asked her how long she’d known her husband.
“It’s our third wedding anniversary, I met him about a year before we were married.”
“Do you know where he was living seven years ago, what he was doing?”
“Paul wasn’t connected with any murder if that’s what you’re getting at.”
“Your husband—”
Camel stood. “Well you think Paul is involved in something criminal … but you also think he’s not the kind of man who’d break the law, that’s what you said, a super-straight arrow—”
“Don’t interrogate me.”
He looked surprised then nodded … Annie was right, without noticing it he’d slipped into his old role as homicide detective, ferreting lies.
“The only criminals Paul has ever met are the ones he worked with in a prison program called Our Brothers’ Keepers.” She explained what she knew about the program, run by a religious organization and dedicated to helping former convicts make a fresh start.
Camel said it could be a connection. “Say he meets a prisoner who knows the Cul-De-Sac killer, finds out something was stashed in the building and—”
“That man last night, could he be the killer?”
“I don’t think so, Growler’s still in prison and according to the description I got there was nothing unusual about his teeth.”
“Who?”
“Donald Growler.” Camel pronounced it Grow-ler. “He’s the one who killed his cousin in Cul-De-Sac, you ever hear your husband mention that name?”
“No.”
A knock on the hallway door, Annie coming off the bed to stand behind Camel who was sufficiently roused by her frightened reaction that he drew a .357 magnum revolver from the holster on his belt. “Yeah?”
“Teddy it’s me.”
Camel put the revolver away and turned to Annie. “Ed Neffering … from downstairs.”
She said she remembered.
Camel opened the door, Neffering giving Annie a big smile. “How you feeling honey?”
“Embarrassed.”
“Don’t be silly.” Then to Camel, “I didn’t know your friend was still here, I was going to ask you to take the stakeout tonight.” He looked back at Annie. “We got a flasher bothering women in our parking garage, I’ve been working on a pattern when he hits and I think he might be due again tonight. The stakeout wouldn’t take but an hour.”
“Teddy could do that while I do some shopping.”
Camel started to say no but Eddie spoke first, “It’s all right, we’ll catch him next time. I’d do the stakeout myself except—”
“You and Mary are having dinner with Mike and Kathy.”
Eddie asked Camel how he knew but Camel just smiled that strange, pained smile of his … Eddie finally shrugging. “It’s up to you about the stakeout, if you decide to do it you know the drill.” Then to Annie, “Hope to see you again honey.”
After Neffering left, Camel relocked the door.
“You go do your stakeout,” Annie said. “I need some time anyway. I have to buy a few things, a change of clothes, maybe when I get back we’ll have a chance to eat something too, then you can go get Paul. I’ll keep calling Cul-De-Sac so I can explain to him you’re coming. I’ll pass you off as an old friend of my mother’s.”
“Yeah.”
“Teddy? Telling him about all my old boyfriends? That didn’t include you, I keep you in a separate room … no one else gets to go in there.”
Camel nodded.
Annie smiled for the first time since awakening. “Did I hurt your feelings when I said I could pass you off as an old friend of my mother’s?”
He shook his head.
“Teddy.”
“A little.”
“Good.”