Boogie House: A Rolson McKane Mystery Read Online Free

the other side. He and I weren’t on good terms - not that anybody ever got beyond ‘asshole’ distinction in his book - but we weren’t really enemies. He just didn’t like for me to talk or move or be in his line of sight.
    Harper must have felt the heat coming off the both of us, because he was actively looking for something to say to bring the temperature of the room down.
    "This ain’t nothin’ to get heated over, y'all," Harper stammered, looking nervously in the direction of the ambulance, behind which Spooner McCovey was futzing around with some brand of medical equipment. "Jeez, where the heck's Spooner with the body bag?"
    Bullen hawked and spat again, laughing. "No matter. Sum-bitch'll need a ladle to get all of him up off the floor."

 
     
     
     
    Third Chapter
     
     
     
     
     
    People have learned not to bring up my mother within earshot of me. When I was in school, the first boy to make the mistake of calling her a ‘nigger lover’ had to get his nose reset and four teeth replaced. Since I lived most all my life in the Junction, I never really had to explain my displeasure about being teased on that subject to anyone else.
    Occasionally the talk surfaces in conversation, I’m sure. Some think I blocked out what happened back in nineteen eighty-two, and so they give me furtive glances when they think I can’t see them, but I know. The way I’ve lived my life has given plenty of people reason to run me down, but none as interesting as why I ended up getting raised by my great aunt Birdie.
    What the town sewing circles don't understand is that my mother's death is not a secret to be kept, and the rumor mill is the rumor mill, so it can’t be changed. I was a witness to some of what happened that night, so I have no reason to wonder why blue-haired church ladies sometimes treat me like wet plaster.
    My mother lived - and, without protest on her end, died - under the weight of my father’s thumb. He didn't kill her, but she would have, no doubt, lived a fuller and healthier life without him. It was a quick rise and slow descent, but out of their intense but flawed love came a son, so I guess it wasn’t totally wasted time.
    My father built relationships without foundations, so it shouldn’t have been a surprise to him that they never lasted. He treated anyone he had a passing connection with as if he that person owed him something, as if giving a piece of himself were some sort of contract.
    Eventually, it broke down. Sooner or later it was bound to happen. The old man didn't realize the arms he thought he'd been using to control others were instead wrapped around his own neck and slowly strangling him. And though he was a high school dropout, he wasn’t a stupid man. He understood immediately why he hadn’t been told about the pregnancy, why my mother had worn loose clothes to hide it from him, why she broke down crying when he confronted her about it.
    My mother had finally called his bluff, and his response was to watch everything burn down around him, while he sat drunkenly in his recliner. He must have realized some dark truth about the pregnancy, though he never really said much of anything out loud about it.
    I don’t remember him actually hitting her, but my memories of the time - what little I remember - are punctuated by loud sounds and broken furniture. She didn’t wear sunglasses and never wore makeup (never had to), so if he ever struck her, it wasn’t in the face.
    I was too little and too frightened by the old man to do anything about it except cry. I suppose I cried a lot, but that, too, could be me laying my own current feelings about the situation onto the past. It mostly feels like I’m watching the whole thing happen from a distance, like it’s my own personal Christmas Carol, and I’m forced to think about what impact those nine months have had on the trajectory of my life.
    When the baby came due, the doctor made a house call, trundling through the house with my