The Lesson of Her Death

What’s in your closet right now? A double-breasted suit, slacks, Bermudas, Izod shirts, ha, akhaki
uniform
or two, ha, am I right? Think how jealous your floor is.”
    “No—”
    “You don’t know what a difference new carpeting makes. To your peace of mind. To your marriage.” He was a pit bull with a feeble blond mustache. “Do you want to talk about stress? What color’s your carpet now?”
    “I’m not really interested—”
    “Bare floors? Whoa, let’s talk stress.”
    “No carpet. Just Amos Trout.”
    “You’re not here to buy carpet?”
    “No.”
    “Detective?” Trout came out from the back room. They shook hands.
    “Hey, Sheriff,” the kid said, “your police station have carpeting?”
    Trout waved him away.
    When they were seated by Trout’s desk Corde said, “Eager.”
    “How. No. Pain in the ass. But he sells carpet. He’ll be down at the Nissan dealership in three years and probably selling Boeings by the time he’s twenty-eight. I can’t keep boys like that long.”
    Corde asked, “You said you saw the ad in the
Register?”
    “The wife and I were to Minnesota on vacation for a while after that murder happened. Just a coincidence but I saw it when I spread out the paper to shine her shoes. You shine your wife’s shoes, Officer?”
    “They do love it, don’t they? Now tell me, you were driving along Route 302 that night. That’d be Tuesday night, April 20?”
    “That’s right. I was driving home. It was about ten, ten-thirty or so. That Tuesday was our acrylic pile sale and we’d done so well I’d had to stay late to log in the receipts and mark down which’re checks, which’re charges, which’re cash, you get the picture. So I got me a Slurpee and was driving past the pond when this mansuddenly runs into the road in front of me. What happened was that my left high beam’s out of whack. And I don’t think he could see me coming because there was this bush hanging out into the road that the county really oughta take care of.”
    “You had a clear view?”
    “Sure did. There he was in front of me, leaping like a toad on July asphalt. Then he saw me and just froze and I swerved out of the way and that was that.”
    “Was there a car nearby?”
    “Yessir. But I didn’t see what kind.”
    “Was it light or dark?”
    “The car? Lighter more’n darker.”
    “You recall the plates?”
    “Don’t even know if it had plates or was a truck or sedan. I just didn’t notice, I was so concerned with not running that man over. What was left of the Slurpee went onto the floor and for the first time I was glad I got the maroon interior.”
    “He was a man, not a boy?”
    “Not a boy, nope. Probably late thirties, early forties.”
    “Could you describe him?”
    “Solid build but not fat, short hair, not real dark, combed straight back. He was wearing dark pants and a light jacket but the jacket was covered with dirt.”
    “White?”
    “Pardon?”
    “What was his race?”
    “Oh. Yeah, he was white,”
    “Jewelry, hats, shoes?”
    “No, like I say, I swerved past him real fast.”
    “If you saw a picture of him would you remember it?”
    “Like in a lineup or something? I could try.”
    “Anything else you remember?”
    “No.”
    “Nothing unusual? Try to think back.”
    “No, nothing. Well, except I figured he was handy. Imean, he knew about cars. He was going to replace the ignition cable himself. Not everybody can do that. That’s why I almost stopped. To help him.”
    “Ignition cable?”
    “But it was late and the wife gets a bee in her bra I don’t get home by eleven, sale or no.”
    “He was working on the car?”
    “Not exactly, he was carrying that piece of wire over to it.”
    “Could you describe it?”
    “You know, ignition wire. White, thick. Looked to be wrapped in plastic like from NAPA.”
    “Could it’ve been rope, like clothesline?”
    Amos Trout went silent for a moment. “Could very well’ve been.”
    Diane walked into the living room and found Ben Breck cutting letters out of sandpaper. Sarah sat on the couch watching him. “I owe you a new pair of scissors,” he said.
    “Beg pardon?”
    He said, “I only had coarse sandpaper. It pretty much ruined the blade.”
    “Well now, I wouldn’t worry about it,” Diane said. “What exactly are you doing?”
    “‘Storage,’” Breck said solemnly and handed an E to Sarah. “Touch it, feel it.” Sarah ran her hand over the letter. “E,” she said. The letter joined