J is for Judgment Read Online Free PDF

water seemed nippy, and if I lowered myself into the depths by as much as six inches, I suffered shortness of breath and a nearly overwhelming desire to shriek. I didn’t really relax my vigilance until I heard Wendell make arrangements to go deep-sea fishing the following afternoon. Had I been truly paranoid, I might have pictured the outing as a cover for his next big getaway, but at that point what did he have to get away
from?
He didn’t know me from Adam, and I hadn’t given him any reason to suspect that I knew him.
    To pass the time, I wrote a postcard to Henry Pitts, my Santa Teresa landlord. Henry’s eighty-four years old and adorable: tall and lean, with a great set of legs. He’ssmart and good-natured, sharper than a lot of guys I know who are half his age. Lately he’d been on a tear because his older brother William, who was now eighty-six, was having a geriatric fling with Rosie, the Hungarian woman who owned the tavern down the street from us. William had come out from Michigan early the previous December, fighting off a bout of depression that descended on him in the wake of a heart attack. William was a trial under the best of circumstances, but his “brush with death” (as he referred to it) had exacerbated all his worst qualities. I gathered that Henry’s other siblings—Lewis, who was eighty-seven, Charlie, age ninety-one, and Nell, who turned ninety-four in December—had taken a completely democratic family vote and, in Henry’s absence, had awarded him custody.
    William’s original two-week visit had now expanded to seven months, and the personal proximity was taking its toll. William, a self-absorbed hypochondriac, prissy, temperamental, and pious, had fallen in love with my friend Rosie, who was herself bossy, neurotic, flirtatious, opinionated, penny-pinching, and outspoken. It was a match made in heaven. Love had turned them both rather kittenish, and it was nearly more than Henry could bear. I thought it was cute, but what did I know?
    I finished the card to Henry and wrote one to Vera, employing a few carefully chosen Spanish phrases. The day seemed interminable, all heat and bugs, kids shrieking in the pool with ear-splitting regularity. Wendell and the woman seemed perfectly content to lie in the sunshine and brown themselves. Hadn’t anyone ever warned them about wrinkles, skin cancer, and sunpoisoning? I retreated into the shade at intervals, too restless to concentrate on the book I was reading. He certainly didn’t behave like a man on the run. He acted like a man with all the time in the world. Maybe after five years he no longer thought of himself as a fugitive. Little did he know that officially he was dead.
    Around five, the
viento negro
began to blow. On a nearby side table, Wendell’s newspapers gave a rattle, pages riffled into snapping attention like a set of canvas sails. I saw the woman snatch at them with annoyance, gathering them together with her towel and her beach hat. She slid her feet into her flip-flops and waited impatiently for Wendell to collect himself. He took a final plunge in the pool, apparently washing off the sunscreen before he joined her. I collected my belongings and left in advance, conscious that the two of them were not far behind. As anxious as I was to maintain a connection, I thought it unwise to be any more direct than I’d been. I might have introduced myself, striking up a conversation in which I might gradually bring the subject around to their current circumstances. I’d noticed, however, their scrupulous avoidance of any show of friendliness, and I had to guess they’d have shunned any overtures. Better to feign a similar disinterest than excite their suspicion.
    I went up to my room and shut the door behind me, watching through the fish-eye until I saw them pass. I had to assume they’d hole up the way the rest of us did until the winds had died. I took a shower and changed into a pair of dark cotton slacks and the dark cotton