Midnight Haul Read Online Free PDF Page A

said, “and took all the furniture. Any other questions?”
    “Jeez,” Crane said, “it’s kind of hard to picture you and some guy having trouble getting along.”
    “I had that coming,” she said, smiling with almost no sarcasm at all. “Do you want something to drink?”
    “Please. Nothing alcoholic.”
    “I got nothing alcoholic. You can have milk or herbal tea or juice.”
    “What kind of juice?”
    “V-8 or orange.”
    “Orange.”
    She brought it to him, in a big glass with Bugs Bunny on it, with ice. She had V-8 and the Road Runner and no ice.
    He sipped the juice and said, “Thank you.”
    She sat back down and said, “It won’t kill me to be civil to you, I guess. For some reason I find myself wanting to take it out on you.”
    “Mary Beth dying, you mean.”
    “Yeah. That and my divorce and life in general. You just make a handy whipping boy.”
    “It’s nice to serve a purpose.”
    “How did you find me? I’m not in the phone book.”
    “Laurie gave me your address. I just came from there.”
    “How are Laurie and her mother doing?”
    “The mother seems dazed, in shock. People are standing around eating and smoking and talking about sports. How Laurie’s doing, I don’t know.”
    “Laurie has her problems.”
    “I know. I saw her son.”
    “Little Brucie isn’t unique, you know.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Birth defects are nothing to write Ripley about, is what I mean. Especially around here.”
    “How so?”
    “I know of two other women in Greenwood in the past three years whose kids were born with deformities. Mary Beth knew about them.”
    “Boone, I was down this road with Laurie… she seems to think Mary Beth was depressed over Brucie’s birth defect, and by her father’s death… but I just can’t buy it.
You
knew her. Did she seem at all suicidal to you?”
    “No. I told you… I don’t believe she killed herself.”
    “What
do
you believe?”
    “I believe she’s dead. Don’t you?”
    He stood; the orange juice in his hand splashed.
    “Goddamnit,” he said, feeling red in the face, flustered, “
tell
me! Quit playing with me! If you know something, suspect something, let me in on the goddamn fucking secret!”
    A little boy about six in a T-shirt and pajama bottoms wandered in. He had thick dark hair and was rubbing his eyes and saying, “Mommy, what’s going on out here? I’m sleeping.”
    Boone smiled at the boy, tousled his hair and said, “Mommy’s got company. Go on back to bed.”
    The boy looked at Crane and said, “Who are you?”
    Crane didn’t know what to say; he was standing there with a glass of orange juice in his hand, half of which he’d just splashed on himself, knowing he looked like an idiot, both to this six year old and himself.
    “Just a friend of Mommy’s,” Boone said.
    “If he stays all night I’ll tell Daddy,” the boy said.
    “He won’t be staying all night,” she said, getting firm. “Now go to bed!”
    The kid shrugged and said, “Okay,” and gave Crane a dirty look and shuffled off.
    Crane sat down. “Sorry I got loud,” he said.
    “I’m sorry I seem so evasive…”
    “You’ve got a nice-looking boy, there.”
    “He looks like his father. Same disposition, too, I’m afraid.”
    “His father must be a good-looking guy.”
    “He is.”
    “There isn’t much affection in your voice.”
    “There isn’t much affection in me, period, where Patrick is concerned.”
    “Patrick? Your husband’s name is Patrick Boone?
Pat
Boone?”
    She smiled. “Yeah. We used to kid him about that, back in the old days.” She laughed softly. “The old days. Did you ever think the Vietnam years would be the ‘old days’?”
    “Nobody ever thinks any time is going to be the ‘old days.’ That’s when you met your husband, then? In college?”
    “Yeah. He was a little older than me. We worked together on an underground paper.
The Third Eye
, it was called.”
    “Was that around here someplace?”
    “No. Back