N is for Noose
Page 61"Bravo."
"Can you do that?"
"Sure."
"Let's see."
Geez, the things I'll do in the line of duty, I thought. I'm a shameless suck-up when it comes to information. I took her place on the swing, backing up as she had until I was standing on tiptoe. I pushed off, holding on to the chains. I leaned back as I straightened my legs and then pumped back, leaning forward, continuing in a rocking motion as the trajectory of the swing increased. I went higher and higher. At the top of the swing, I released myself and flew forward as she had. I couldn't quite stick the landing and was forced to take a tiny side step for balance.
"Not bad. It takes practice," she said charitably. "Why don't we walk? You got your bumbershoot?"
"It's not raining."
She pushed her hood back and looked up. "It will before long. Here. You can share mine."
"You don't work today?" I asked.
"I'm taking a leave of absence."
"Mind if I ask why?"
"You can ask anything you want. Believe me, I'm experienced at avoiding answers when the questions don't suit. I turn fifty this coming June. I'm not worried about aging, but it does make you take a long hard look at your life. Suddenly, things don't make sense. I don't know what I'm doing or why I'm doing it."
"You have family in town?"
"Not any more. I grew up in Indiana, right outside Evansville. My parents are both gone… my dad since 1976, my mom just last year. I had two brothers and a sister. One of my brothers, the one who lived here, was diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia and he was dead in six months. My other brother was killed in a boating accident when he was twelve. My sister died in her early twenties of a botched abortion. It's a very strange sensation to be out on the front lines alone."
"You have any kids?"
"No. I've been married and divorced twice, both times in my twenties. At that point, I wasn't ready to have children. I wasn't even ready for marriage, but how did I know? My current lifestyle seems to preclude domesticity so it's just as well."
"Know what I regret? I wish now I'd listened more closely to family stories. Or maybe I wish I had someone to pass 'em on to. All that verbal history out the window. I worry about what's going to happen to the family photograph albums once I'm gone. They'll be thrown in the garbage… all those aunts and uncles down the tubes. Junk stores, you can sometimes buy them, old black-and-white snapshots with the crinkly edges. The white-frame house, the vegetable garden with the sagging wire fence, the family dog, looking solemn," she said. Her voice dropped away and then she changed the subject briskly. "What'd you do to your hand?"
"A fellow dislocated my fingers. You should have seen them… pointing sideways. Made me sick," I said.
We strolled on for a bit. To the right of us, a low wall separated the sidewalk from the sand on the far side. There must have been two hundred yards of beach before the surf kicked in; all of this looking drab in current weather conditions. "How are we doing so far?" I asked.
"In what respect?"
"I assume you're sizing me up, trying to figure out how much you want to tell."
"Yes, I am," she said. "Tom confided in me and I take that seriously. I mean, even if he's dead, why would I betray his trust?"
"This is not about Tom. This is about his wife," she said.
"You could look at it that way."
"Why should I help her?"
"Simple compassion. She's entitled to peace of mind."