The Killing Vision - By Will Overby Page 0,28

the opportunity and ran.

Marla’s parents let them move into the abandoned trailer behind their house, and at first Wade was happy. Being away from Mama and Clifton was almost as good as heaven. But after a few months he knew he had made a mistake. Being married was simply another kind of hell. But leaving Marla would have meant going back home, and he sure didn’t want that. But gradually he realized there was one critical difference between living with his stepfather and living with Marla: here, Wade was in control. Marla might argue and disagree with him, but she didn’t fight back. Not anymore.

He knew she was not happy with him. No more than he was happy with her. In fact, she hated him sometimes; he could see it in her eyes. And sometimes he hated her, and there was pleasure in hurting her. But he tried not to think of that. Besides, Marla was an adult; no one was stopping her if she wanted to leave.

Now, in the musky darkness of their bedroom, he rolled over to her and put an arm around her waist, settling in to finally go to sleep. Marla dozed on, unaware that a hand she had cowered from so many times now lay gently and almost affectionately across her stomach.

MONDAY, JULY 9

10:17 AM

Joel and Wade were working on a job at Mayor Carver’s house in Marvin Heights, a gated subdivision out by the college, and Joel was angry.

Not only had Wade refused to tell him anything about where he had been all weekend, but he became absolutely livid when Joel told him that Marla had called looking for him. Joel knew it was none of his business where Wade had been, and in truth he didn’t care. But Wade had a family, and he had responsibilities. And— dammit—he had the obligation to tell his wife what the hell he’d been up to all weekend. Joel only pushed so far; Wade had his limits, and they were undeniably short. Reluctantly, Joel tried to focus on his work, which at the moment was adding another cable outlet in the mayor’s living room.

The room was huge, and it likely would have swallowed Joel’s whole house. One entire wall was lined with shelves crammed with books, and opposite that was a stone fireplace so massive that the mantle was several inches above their heads; on the paneled wall above that was the stuffed head of a large moose, its glass eyes peering down at them in a rather condescending way. A monstrous grand piano sat beside a pair of French doors that looked out over a regal patio and a large pool beyond. The furniture was sparse and tailored, clustered into groups about the room, what Martha Stewart would have undoubtedly called “conversation areas.” Joel was more accustomed to conventional surroundings—rooms in which he felt like a colossal floundering whale, afraid to move lest he scrape shelves and tables free of their knick-knacks with his awkward, beefy limbs. The living rooms of old ladies cluttered with dusty framed photographs resting on crocheted doilies or the dens of families where so many toys littered the room that you couldn’t walk. Here he felt small. Well, not small exactly, but maybe this was how a normal-sized person felt in a normal-sized room.

Mrs. Carver, a large-boned woman with short blonde hair and thick lips, darted in and out of the room nervously, as if she feared they would take off with the family heirlooms. “I’ll be in the kitchen,” she told them from the doorway. “If you need me.”

Wade finished drilling a hole into the floor and blew the sawdust from it. “Go downstairs to the basement and find the service entrance,” he told Joel. “Run a tap from the main cable over to here.”

Joel skulked across the great room toward the hall where he had seen Mrs. Carver disappear. “Hello?” he called. The hallway seemed endless, its walls lined with plaques and certificates, testimonies to the mayor’s influence.

He stopped and stared at one.

Presented to

MAYOR LARRY CARVER

In appreciation of his years of dedicated service.

Cedar Hill Park Board

Joel wondered what the mayor could have done to receive this plaque, other than show up at the meetings and approve the budget.

There were countless others. The Cedar Hill School Chess Club. The Rotary Club. The Optimists Club. Mayor Carver was indeed a busy man.

There was a photograph of the mayor receiving some type of medal on a blue ribbon from a balding, bespectacled