Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. Vol. 50, No. 1 & 2, January/February 2005

Barbara put the Coke in the small refrigerator and her purse on a turquoise Formica table. The table had only two chairs; neither matched the other or the table. She moved to the small sink and rinsed out a coffeepot, then reached for a bag of coffee-and-chicory. She put a fresh pot on her Mr. Coffee machine. Beau noticed the place was very clean, smelling of lemon cleaner, curtains fluffed without a hint of dust. The windows sparkled.

Barbara sat in one of the chairs and nodded to the other. Beau sat across from her. She finally looked him in the eye again and said, “He beat up an old woman?”

“Pistol-whipped.”

Her shoulders sank and tears welled in her eyes again. She put her face in her hands. After a good cry, she got up for a Kleenex, took two matching mugs from the cupboard, and asked in a hollow voice, “Cream or sugar?”

“Black.”

“It’s strong.”

“That’s the way I like it.”

She brought the coffee and sat down across from him.

Beau said, “Earlier you said, ‘I knew something like this was going to happen.’ What did you mean?”

She took in a deep breath. “I should have said something like this was bound to happen.” She stared into her coffee and explained. Beau took notes as Barbara Clay laid out her life with John Clay in short, weary sentences.

Married two years, Barbara was the sole supporter. John Clay, who had served time in juvenile detention and a ninety-day stint in parish prison for battery, was supposed to be in welding school. Previously he’d taken auto mechanic classes and air-conditioning classes.

“He could be sweet,” Barbara said, taking a sip of coffee. “But he had a mean streak.” She lifted her arm and looked at the bruises. “Never hit me, just grabbed and squeezed, and shook me sometimes. When he’d been drinking.”

Barbara got up and moved to the sink, opened the cabinet below, and pointed inside. “I hid his first gun in there. Behind the cans of cleaners. He was drunk. When he woke, I told him he came home without the gun.” She came back to the table. “It was a Colt. Nine millimeter, I think. I threw it in the river.”

She didn’t know what he was doing with a gun. He never seemed to have any money and never came home with anything. “I told him if I ever caught him bringing anything stolen here, I was gone.” Her face seemed to tighten, and her voice was stronger now.

“I got rid of the gun and he went right out and got a bigger gun. A Smith & Wesson. Forty caliber. He said everyone needs a gun in this city. Said he was going to get me a twenty-two.”

She looked into her cup again. “I was going to leave him. Started to time and again, but...”

Beau took out a business card and put it on the table. Barbara leaned over and looked at it before stepping back to the kitchen counter and digging two pieces of paper from the silverware drawer. She sat and passed them to Beau. Gun receipts.

“He bought both at gun shows in Kenner. Even waited the five days.”

The first receipt, for a Colt 9mm, was dated over a year ago. The second, three months later, for a Smith & Wesson forty caliber. Willard was lucky one of those rounds hadn’t hit him.

“Was it a police officer who shot him?”

Beau nodded. “A rookie. Your husband gave him no choice.”

Barbara sighed and picked up Beau’s card and said, “It’s French? Your name?”

“Cajun.”

“I thought you were Mexican. Hispanic.”

“I get that a lot.” Beau’s face remained expressionless. “My mother’s Oglala Sioux.”

Her eyes lit up. “I’m from South Dakota. Sioux Falls.”

“My mother’s back up there with my grandparents. Pine Ridge Reservation.” Beau knew Sioux Falls was on the other side of the state.

A sad smile came to Barbara Clay’s lips. “Fancy meeting a Lakota down here.”

At least she had the tribe’s name right. Sioux was the name given to Beau’s people by their enemies, like the Pawnee and the Crow and the white man. Actually Beau liked the word Sioux better. It ran off the tongue with fierceness.

“May I see your driver’s license?” Beau asked.

She dug it out of her purse and he copied her pertinent information from it, date of birth, social security number. Her maiden name was Crockett. She looked nice in her photo, nicer than most people. She should smile more often. He passed her license back.

“Where do you work?”

“Charity Hospital M.R.I. Unit.”

Beau smiled. “I was in one yesterday.” His mind immediately flashed back to the M.R.I. Unit at Ochsner Hospital, him inside the hollow center of a space-age machine, lying very still for twenty minutes, with the machine making loud noises. He remembered all the warning signs lining the walls, signs warning about pacemakers, the danger of magnetizing metal objects brought into the room. He had to leave everything outside the unit, gun, badge, belt buckle, even his ballpoint pen.

“Why were you there?” Barbara asked.