Ronnie stared at his mother for a full fifteen seconds before comprehension finally dawned. “Oh shit,” he said. “You wanna do that old lady, don’t you?” He was suddenly both aroused as well as struck with an almost paralyzing case of nerves. Was this what he wanted to do? Was this all he was good for?
“We can’t do nothing about that Cannon Falls baby,” Marjorie said. “That’s a done deal.” She was pulling on her coat, fumbling with her mittens. “But we can sure as hell do something about Muriel Pink.”
*
THE drive through the countryside was dicey at best. Sleet pelted down, icing the windows and turning the blacktopped county roads into a skating rink.
“This is really getting bad,” Ronnie said. He snuck a sidelong glance at Marjorie. “You think we should turn around?”
Marjorie just stared straight ahead. Her mind was made up; there was no turning back.
They crawled along County Road BB, finally came out on Carmichael Road, and then, four miles farther, hit the Interstate. Finally, they slid down the hill, the Saint Croix River a wide swath of darkness below them, and turned off into Hudson. As they cruised through the downtown area, they didn’t see a soul out walking. Just lights burning in a couple of bars.
“They really roll up the sidewalks in this town, don’t they?” Marjorie said. “That’s good.” She peered out, silently mouthing the names of the street signs. “Turn here. Locust Street.” They drove up a slight hill, past the police station, and then hung a left on Third.
They cruised past the Octagon House at Myrtle and Third and then turned right on Oak. A couple more turns and Ronnie slowed the car as they glided past Muriel Pink’s house on Flint Street.
“That’s it?” he asked. The house was dark, save for a dim light that glowed somewhere. Maybe in the kitchen.
“Keep going,” Marjorie said. “Go on past her house a little ways.”
Ronnie drove to the end of the block and stopped. Put the car in Park, left the engine running. “You sure you want to do this?” he said. Ronnie didn’t mind a little rough sex when he needed to get his gun off, but killing a woman? Then again, it might be interesting. Sort of a new . . . diversion.
“She’s gonna be a problem,” Marjorie said, sounding almost philosophical. “Sooner or later. You saw the way she talked on TV. All puffed up and certain of herself. With a little more coaxing, she could probably identify me. You, too.”
“I don’t think she saw me.”
“Don’t get smart.”
Ronnie hunched forward over the steering wheel.
“I need you to man up and take care of business,” Marjorie said.
“What do you mean?” Ronnie snapped back. “Exactly?”
“I want you to go in there and use your hunting knife. Take care of that woman nice and quick, just like you would an ordinary whitetail deer.”
Ronnie smiled crookedly in the darkness. “You mean kill her?”
Marjorie stared at him.
Ronnie was sweating in the faint warmth being spewed out by the car’s heater. He’d worked with a butcher once, a guy named Hofferman over in Martell. Helped him butcher and process more than fifty deer during hunting season. Skinned ’em, carved out the front shoulders, backstraps, brisket, sirloin, and hindquarters. Quick and efficient, assembly-line style. He’d found the work thought provoking.
Finally Ronnie said, “I never did a person before.”
“There’s a first time for everything, my boy. Besides, you’ve gone after women before, don’t play dumb with me.”
He gestured back toward Muriel Pink’s house and shrugged. He was still undecided. “But not like this. She’s an old lady.”
“Listen to me.” Marjorie reached across the front seat and grabbed hold of his collar, showing surprising strength for such a birdlike woman. “If that old lady ID’s either one of us, we’re cooked.”
“Maybe she—”
“Shut up and listen to me. Do you want to go to prison?”
Ronnie shrugged his shoulders. “Of course not.”
“If that Pink woman identifies us, we’ll sure as shit go to prison, no questions asked. And you, my boy, will never survive that experience.”
Ronnie felt his guts practically turn to water.
“When women are sent to jail, they get to live in cottages and cook meals in a real kitchen,” Marjorie said. “Guys go to hard-core prisons with cement cells, twenty-foot walls, and guard towers with automatic rifles. You’ve seen that prison over in Stillwater, haven’t you? You want to call that place home for the next thirty years?”
Ronnie shook his head.
Marjorie continued to pound away at him. Finally, she turned the tide by asking him one simple question: “Do you want nasty old men to use you like they would a woman?”
That was when Ronnie heaved a knowing sigh. He gathered up his knives, his night vision glasses, and the battered pizza box in the backseat. Then, without a word to her, he climbed out of the car and slunk toward what would soon become a charnel house.