Page 20 of Too Old for This

“Thank you for calling InterDial. How may I be of assistance?” The woman’s voice is nasally, her greeting a bit rushed.

“Hello. I am trying to find a specific person. His name is Jaxon, and he was calling on behalf of Fairhaven Bank. I believe you are the company handling that account?”

“If you want to complain, you can call our customer service number.”

“I’m not complaining. Jaxon was so helpful, and I’d really like to speak to him again. Is there any way I can do that?”

Long pause. The receptionist at InterDial was clearly expecting a complaint. Not a surprise, given how Jax treated me, and I bet he isn’t the only one who is unhappy in that job. For God’s sake, the company headquarters is in a strip mall somewhere near Reno.

“I’m not sure I can help you,” she says.

“That’s disappointing. I thought for sure you would be able to look up who called my number.”

“I can put you on with someone who can explain—”

“No, thank you. Jaxon understood what I needed, and he’s the one I’d like to speak to.”

End call.

Yes, I’m still trying to track down a telemarketer, but I can’t sit around thinking about Kelsie all day. It’s so bad for my blood pressure. And everybody needs a distraction.

Unfortunately, Friday afternoon is not the best time to try and get hold of people. They are too busy trying to wrap up and get out for the weekend. At the bank, I was the same. Always anxious to be somewhere else.

Late in the afternoon, I get dressed and leave the house. Another night of watching Kelsie. My first stop is the police station, where I catch her driving away.

Oh, look, she’s going to yoga on a Friday evening. How surprising.

I go to the coffee shop across the street. Otherwise, I might fall asleep while on stalker duty. Plus, it’s painful to sit in the car for long periods of time, not to mention boring. Although thinking about what would happen if Kelsie revealed who I was keeps me awake.

The shock would come first, and then, one by one, people would turn against me. Even my friends. Maybe Pastor Doug, too. It wouldn’t surprise me if Glenda would convince him to turn me away at the door.

Not that I would go back to First Covenant. I’ve already been down the pariah road. Just say no to that.

After yoga, Kelsie goes straight home, and I park down the street.

There’s always a chance she might surprise me, but I doubt it.

After fifteen minutes, I lose hope that she’s going anywhere.

But I stick around, keeping my fingers crossed.

You never know. People can surprise you.

God knows, I’ve been surprised a few times in my life.

But not tonight. Forty-five minutes later, she is still in her house.

I remove the wig, wipe off the mauve lipstick, and drive around the block. I park across the street. Not one more day. I cannot deal with one more day of this nonsense.

Her porch has a small swing on one side, surrounded by plants, and no cameras anywhere. Not even on the doorbell.

I knock.

The door has a peephole, just like mine. Kelsie opens the door and looks confused. She has swapped her workout clothes for a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, and her feet are bare. Her toenails are painted blue.

“Lottie?”

“Hello, Detective. I wanted to stop by and give you something. May I come in?”

“How did you get my address?”

“The internet.”

Her face tightens, and she purses her lips as she opens the door. I step into a small entryway that opens to a family room. On the right is a hallway leading to the back of the house. Her house is overfilled, cluttered with clothes and sneakers and books. Every surface is covered with something.

I follow her through the family room, into the kitchen. An island separates the two, and the linoleum floor looks at least twenty years old.

“I hope you have a lot more than last time,” she says.

I reach into my bag and pull out another full envelope. She snatches it out of my hand and opens it, running her finger over the hundred-dollar bills.

“It’s another forty-five hundred,” I say. “I wanted to bring it to you straight away.”

She narrows her eyes. “Why are you so anxious to pay me?”

“Because it seems like you need it.”

Kelsie takes a step back, as if I’ve physically hit her, and it doesn’t look like she’s faking it. She must believe her desperation doesn’t show. But it always does.

“What are you up to?” she asks.

“Up to? I’m trying my best to get you the money.”

“Then where’s the rest?”

“Still working on it.”

“Work harder.” Her voice is different. Sharper and clipped.

She points to the door, ordering me out like I’m the help instead of someone who has given her $9,000.

“Could I trouble you for a glass of water?” I ask. “It’s time for me to take one of my pills. Cholesterol…No, wait. This one is for blood pressure. I swear, it’s always something at my age. So many medications.”

Kelsie rolls her eyes and grabs a glass out of the cupboard. As she fills it up, I reach into my bag, but not for a pill. For my claw hammer.

She sees it a second too late.

—

My preference for this weapon came from Debbie.

I never knew anything about tools or hammers or how many kinds there were until she taught me.

Debbie is one of the few people who has a spot on my list of life milestones.

Gary was the biggest one, but there were others.

I think about them in my most sentimental I’m-nearly-dead moments.

Before and after Gary.

Before and after Archie.

Before and after Burke.

Before and after Debbie.

She was selling some used furniture, and I stopped by her house to look at it.

Archie had outgrown his bed, desk, and chair.

It was all too little-boyish for him. He had reached the mature age of twelve and didn’t want all that “baby” stuff.

Debbie’s son was getting ready to leave for college, and she planned to turn his room into an office. It worked out well for the both of us.

She was about ten years older than me and was in excellent shape. She wore cutoff jeans and a tight shirt, and she had a tattoo of a bird on her arm. The wrinkles on her face and neck had settled in, but her eyes had something in them. Not a spark. More like a magnet.

She also had a hammer slung in the belt loop of her denim shorts. I asked why she walked around with it.

“This is my security system.” No whistle or pepper spray for Debbie. She preferred a steel hammer, with one flat edge and the other curved like a claw with a split down the center.

“Have you ever hit someone with it?” I asked.

“I don’t have to. That’s the point.”

I followed Debbie into her kitchen. She lived in a house much smaller and more manageable than mine. It was cluttered with all the normal things: Shoes, mail, bags, jackets. A basket of laundry in the hall. A chalkboard for appointments and notes.

She motioned for me to sit down and poured two cups of coffee. Never asked if I wanted anything. She just plunked the mug down in front of me, along with a small carton of cream and a few packets of sweetener.

“I only had to use it once,” she said.

I poured cream in my coffee and leaned in a little closer to her. No chance I was going to miss this opportunity. “When?”

“After my husband and I split up, I was living alone with two kids. Everything scared me. All the sounds…the creaks and knocks, even the trees brushing against the house. And I started wondering if I could protect them. Like if something did happen, you know?”

“I do.”

“I was cleaning out the house, getting ready to have a garage sale, and I found this old box of tools. It was my ex’s. He had left it behind, and I put a price tag on it. On the day of the sale, this man showed up, and there was something about him. You know what I’m saying?”

“I do.”

“He made me feel so weird that I picked up the hammer and slung it into a belt loop,” she said. “Something about having it there, feeling the weight of it on my hip, made me feel stronger. A little less afraid.”

I nodded along with her now, understanding her words even though I had never carried a hammer before.

“So you had to use it on him?” I asked.

“Not on him. He got the message and left a few minutes later. Didn’t buy anything, either, so I knew he was up to no good.” Debbie sighed and looked out the window. “And you know how I felt? Lucky.”

“Lucky?”

“Isn’t that horrible?” she said. “To feel lucky no one attacked you?”

“Yes.”

“Accepting that was the hardest part. That I should feel grateful to make it through the day alive,” she said. “And it wasn’t the last time, either.”

I paused for a minute before asking my question. “Doesn’t it make you angry?”

“Of course. It makes all of us angry.”

“You said you used it once. But not on the man at the garage sale?”

“Oh, no, not him,” she said. “It was on a boyfriend. I caught him in bed with another woman.”

“Did you…”

“Kill him? No, nothing like that. I broke his ankle when he tried to run after me. God, it was so funny. He was naked and trying to wrap the sheet around himself as he followed me to the door. When he grabbed my arm, I grabbed the hammer.”

I laughed, because she did. And because it was hilarious.

“He’s lucky you didn’t hit him in the head,” I told her.

“See, that’s it. That’s it right there.”

“What’s it?”

“ He was lucky I didn’t attack him ,” she said. “Not the other way around.”

Debbie taught me about a lot of things that day, starting with luck. Who felt it and who needed to feel it.

She also taught me about the hammer. After leaving her house, I drove straight to the hardware store and bought one. In my head, I’ve killed Detective Burke with that same hammer so many times.

But today, I used it on Kelsie.