Page 107 of The Happy Month

“Yeah, we interviewed her. Bartender. Kind of political.”

“Not a suspect, though?”

“No.”

“I didn’t think so.”

“Betty Brooks?”

“No.”

“Manny and Virginia Marker?”

“No. My mother’s name was Virginia, Ginny, I’d have remembered that.”

“Anyway, could I look at your murder book?”

He was silent.

“The case is archived.”

“You didn’t bring home a copy?”

“My wife would kill me if I did something like that.”

That wasn’t exactly a ‘no’. I left a long silence.

“There’s someone I can talk to, though. Let me see what I can do.”

“Thank you.”

I gave him my number and Ronnie’s fax. After I hung up, Junior caught me up on his difficulties with the Section 8 people. I barely paid attention. Basically, they wanted to come and look at the house. Or more specifically, my bedroom.

“Talk to Ronnie.”

I sat up, and then stood up. A bolt of pain ran through my right side. Taking a few deep breaths, I turned toward the kitchen.

“What do you need? I can get it for you?”

“That’s fine,” I said, then began walking. Ronnie had made me some lunch and left it in the fridge. Just a turkey sandwich and potato salad, but I didn’t have to make it.

I was part way there when I realized I was not getting through the whole day without my pills. I called for Junior and asked him to go upstairs and get my Percocet from the bedroom. And I knew the rest of the day was about to slip away from me.

First thing Tuesday morning, I asked Junior if he could drive a stick.

“Of course I can.”

“That’s not a double entendre.”

“The first three cars I owned were stick shifts.”

“Good. Where’s my Jeep? I need you to drive me to Eagle Rock.”

“Your Jeep’s in the shop. We’ll take my car.”

Why didn’t I think he had a car?Everyone had a car. Even desperately poor people had cars in California.

After breakfast we left the house. He led me around the corner and then down the alley behind our house. We didn’t have a garage—one of the reasons Ronnie had gotten the house for a song. It wasn’t that difficult to park on the street in our neighborhood, so it didn’t matter much to us. Halfway down the alley, Junior took out his keys and unlocked a padlock on a garage. He pushed the garage door up, and behind it was his car. He was renting a garage from one of our neighbors. Ronnie was going to kill him.