talk. Look to Alma: I hear she’s got the Bible real bad.”
“The Bible is the core . . .” Einstadt said.
“This is Kate Spooner you’re talking to,” Spooner said. “You’ve been talking Bible to me since I was five years old, and your dad before you, and his dad before him, and all you ever hear is Lot and his daughters and Tamar and Judah and Jacob and Leah and Rachel and you don’t hear about anything else. I’ll tell you what, Emmet, reading the Bible for the fuckin’ parts is not really reading the Bible. That’s okay with me; but now Alma is reading the other parts.”
“I’ll take care of Alma,” Rooney said.
“Rooney, excuse me, but you couldn’t take care of a fuckin’ rock,” Spooner said. They heard the sound of a car in the parking lot, and Einstadt stepped to the window and looked out. Pizza delivery truck.
“You got a pizza coming?” he asked.
“No,” she said, and she took the moment to step up beside him and away from the two other men, to look out the window, and then step quickly past them so she could sit on the far end of the couch. That was a comfort, because her .45 fell under her hand, nestled in the pocket off the end of the couch.
She asked, “So what advice have you got, Emmett?”
Einstadt stared at her, his mouth turned down in a sour line, and he said, “They know a woman did it. They’re probably going to get some of this DNA stuff off Jim’s body—that’s the word in town. They say you were sucking his cock, and they can get the DNA from dried spit. So if it was you, you best stay away from the cops. And after you’ve kept your head down for a while, you might think of moving someplace else. Like Alaska, or somewhere.”
She said, “I’ll think about that, Emmett. Now, I’ve got to eat my lunch, or I’ll be no good the rest of the day. So you go along. And you remember, I put my ass on the line for all of us.”
“Bullshit. You done it because you wanted to. If it had to be done, there’d be better ways to do it,” Einstadt said. “Coulda had him out to the house, taken him out back, and buried the body in the field. Never would have found it in a thousand years.”
“That’s water down the drain,” she said. “I had to do something, and I did it.”
Morgan took a step toward her, but spoke to the others: “We oughta get her airtight one more time, then wring her neck.”
She lifted her hand from over the arm of the couch, with the .45 in her grip, and laid the hand and gun across her lap. “Time to leave,” she said.
A quick relay of glances, and Rooney took a step back. She was crazier than a bucket of frogs.
WHEN THEY’D GONE, Spooner put the .45 back in the couch sleeve, looked out to the parking lot, saw them talking and looking up at her apartment window. Cold out: steam coming out of their mouths as they talked, mostly Morgan and Einstadt. Rooney’s opinions were given to him by Einstadt, especially since he’d given Rooney Alma and the girls.
Maybe, Spooner thought, she ought to give a gun to Alma. Or the girls. Surprise that old sonofabitch someday. She waited until the men got in their trucks and rolled out of the parking lot, then went and put a Lean Cuisine chicken carbonara in the microwave. While she waited for it to ding, she thought about Morgan and his threat, went and got the small 9mm Taurus pistol from her purse, and put it in the pocket of her fleece.
The microwave dinged, and she took out the plastic tray, ate standing up at the kitchen counter, thought about DNA, thought she should know more about it, and had just tossed the tray into the trash when the doorbell rang.
The doorbell hadn’t rung unexpectedly more than three or four times since she’d been in the apartment. She went to the door and looked through the peephole, and saw a tall, blond man, hatless, waiting in the hall. Didn’t know him. Wary, she left the chain on the door, opened it, and peeked out.
“Yes?”
Virgil said, “Miz Spooner? I’m Virgil Flowers, with the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. I’m investigating the death of your ex-husband, and some related problems. I’d like to talk to you a minute.”
“Oh