“Just to nod hello. He worked in the camera store in the mall, the one near Nita’s cart. He was always hanging around her, doing things for her. I noticed because I would hang around, when I could. I’m not even sure she knew his name. I used to tease her about Rudy. I sure as hell wasn’t jealous of him. I was surprised when I read about him being arrested, but—well, he seemed to be pretty far around the bend. He was always an odd duck. Some people thought he didn’t like girls at all, but I never got that vibe from him. He definitely liked Nita.”
She feels almost deflated by the banality of it all. Man sees woman he once had a crush on, breaks into her house—believes himself to have broken into her house—ends up killing the wrong woman in sheer panic. That could even explain the DNA: he became excited, in advance. Rudy was a violent man. He stabbed his father. He attacked her. It fits together. Never disdain the obvious answer. That’s an article of faith for police and prosecutors. The defense attorneys are the ones who have to manufacture conspiracy theories and alibis and alternative killers. Even before Facebook, people were inclined to look up old crushes. Rudy Drysdale, a deeply disturbed individual, saw his old high school crush and decided to kill her. Or something. It’s not as if he were known for making rational decisions.
Davey laughs softly, as if privy to her whirring mind. “Not so mysterious now, is it? If I had known—but, of course, I didn’t know. Well, I guess Nita was due some good luck.”
“Due?”
“I hear she has a sick grandchild.”
“Hear? How did you ‘hear’?”
“It was on some listserv, I think. The Howard County Interfaith community. The girl needs an experimental treatment, but the insurance company won’t cover it. Her pastor said they were going to do a fund-raiser, donate the Sunday collections to her.”
“I remember when you thought ‘interfaith’ was Columbia’s problem.”
Davey laughed, a rumble almost as beautiful as his singing voice. Does he still sing? “This is just an e-mail digest that allows various religious leaders to share our concerns. My problem with the Interfaith Center was that it pretended we were all the same.”
“Nita goes by the name Jonnie Forke now.”
“Does she?” Polite, uninterested. Not getting it.
Lu stands to go. “I feel silly to have bothered you. Davey—do you still sing?”
“I sing with my congregation. But, no, I don’t perform. It appealed too much to my vanity. We have to be careful of our weaknesses, Lu. I was so proud of my body, the things it could do. We know how that turned out.”
“Do we?” Lu asks.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Andi is almost pathetically grateful when Lu asks her if she wants to catch a late bite, although surprised by the suggested location.
“The casino?” she says. “Why would you want to go there?”
“I just have this yen to play a few hands of blackjack, have a few drinks. All work and no play—”
Andi does not bother to assure Lu she isn’t dull. She’s too con cerned with nailing down which one of them will be the designated driver.
“We have to be careful. Wouldn’t look good if one of us were flagged at a sobriety checkpoint.”
“I’m happy to pick you up at your place. And if you get lucky—”
“I’m not that kind of girl,” Andi says, feigning mock outrage. “I’m a lady.”
“The kind of lady who takes his number and calls him the next day.”
“As I said, a lady.” Lu laughs. Outside of work, Andi can be good company.
And, for an evening that began as a ruse, it is surprisingly fun. Lu sets her limit for losing at $200 and blows through it even faster than she hoped. Andi is having an unusually good night—winning hands and winning the attention of a perfectly nice looking man in a suit. She barely seems to notice when Lu says she’s going to grab a bite in the noodle bar.
Jonnie Forke does a double take when she sees Lu, tries to disguise it.
“I’m not your waitress,” she says. “I’ll tell someone you’re waiting.”
“Jonnie Forke of Luk Fu,” Lu says. “Unlucky Jonnie Forke of Luk Fu.”
“What?”
“It’s this thing I do. It helps me remember names, faces. I’m sorry to hear about your grandchild—what was her name? Joni Rose. I didn’t realize—the other day when we were talking—that she was sick. That sucks.”
She shrugs. “Yeah, well, what are you going to do?”
“It’s good, at a time like this, to have the comfort of religion. I’m not a believer, and it makes it harder to get through certain things.”
“I don’t go to church. Your waitress will be with you in a moment. But I’ll put your drink order in if you’re anxious.”
“Just club soda with lime. But I can wait.”
Andi and her new friend join Lu then, flush with possibility if not actual cash. “I’d say winner buys,” Andi says, “but then we’d have to kite the check and how would that look if two prosecutors walked out on a bill? This guy was up five hundred dollars, then totally blew his wad.”
“You two good-looking ladies could not possibly be prosecutors, unless you play them on Law & Order,” says Andi’s admirer, who close up is about ten years north of fifty, where Lu had originally pegged him. Still, he has all his hair.