Free Rescue by Jeremiah Healy Page B

since ‘thirty-three.“
    Pettengill nodded. He seemed good at it.
    I said, “Do you know Melinda’s last name?“
    “Never told me one.“
    “How about where she was from?“
    “From? You mean hometown?“
    “Yes.“
    “Never said.“
    “How about more recently?“
    “No, we didn’t talk much about her... what would you call it, her ‘background’? I got the impression... I’m not sure how you say something like this today, but I think she’d had a hard time of it, and not just before she came to see me.“
    Pettengill said, “Abuse, maybe?“
    “ ‘Abuse.’ I guess that would be a polite word for it, Kyle. I had the feeling people, maybe even family, had taken advantages off her.“ Finn looked out the window again. “Sex things.“
    I gave him a moment. “But you never asked her about it.“
    The hawkish eyes came back to me. “Would you?“
    Pettengill said, “Oz, did she end up working here?“
    Finn eased off. “Yes. I don’t have much needs doing, just the household stuff that fell away a bit since Ma passed on. But I couldn’t turn that girl from my door, so I skipped this room and the bedrooms and got her working on the kitchen and bathroom. I didn’t exactly follow her around, but it was pretty clear she was, doing a good job on things and sure wouldn’t finish before sundown, so we had some beef stew— Dinty Moore, they put out the next best to homemade—and she just wolfed hers down, like it was the first hot meal for a while. I asked her if she could come back the next day, keep going with the work. And Melinda said she could, then asked... then asked if she could maybe sleep on the floor of the spare room back by the kitchen, save herself some time getting here in the morning. Well, it didn’t take a genius to figure she had no place of her own to stay, so I told her to use the upstairs bedroom—I have to stay all on this floor with the arthritis—and gave her a towel and facecloth and showed her where the linen was. She thanked me, and there was a tear coming down her cheek....“ Finn traced a bent index finger down his own face, pantomiming it, then snorted once and dropped the hand to his lap. “Anyway, she stayed that night, and we had toast and cereal the next day, and she started on this room. After that, we just... kept going.“
    I hadn’t wanted to interrupt him, but he seemed finished. “Oz, did many people know she was living here?“
    “Couldn’t say. I sure didn’t tell anybody. Elton’s four times the size it was when I was growing up, but it’s still a small town, and folks in a small town love their gossip.“
    “Did she ever have any boys here?“
    The hawkish eyes again. “Not under my roof.“
    Pettengill said, “Did Melinda know Lonnie Severn?“
    “ Severn ? I hope not.“
    I said, “Then you never saw him around here.“
    “No. There’s something off about that boy, and I don’t just mean from his drinking.“ Finn looked to the sofa. “No offense, Kyle.“
    Pettengill nodded. For a man with a great voice, he didn’t seem to use it much.
    I said, “What do you mean by ‘off’?“
    Finn came back to me. “I don’t know the word for it nowadays, but ‘peculiar’ is how he struck me, first time I met him. The kind who when he was a child would get his pleasure pulling the wings off flies or frying ants on the sidewalk with a magnifier glass.“
    Would get. “Severn’s not from around here, then?“
    “No. I think he come up with the rest of them for that computer place.“
    “Up from where?“
    “Don’t know. South, someplace, account of his accent.“
    Consistent with what I’d thought meeting him on the Interstate.
    Pettengill said, “You ever see Melinda with anybody, Oz?“
    “Anybody?“
    “Anybody at all.“
    Finn shook his head, the jowls swinging some more. “This house isn’t exactly made for entertaining, Kyle. Only one I can think of is that Eddie Straw.“
    I tried to watch Pettengill. He didn’t react more than