The Ruthless by David Putnam

Author:David Putnam [Putnam, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oceanview Publishing
Published: 2021-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

DAD SHOOK MY shoulder. I came out of a dreamworld filled with a mother who didn’t have a face, just a smudged blur of brown skin. I sat with Mom in a car parked running at the curb in front of Bank of the West. She held a big Colt .45 in her small, delicate hand that rested in her lap, as she tried to explain to me that it was okay to take money from other folks as long as you spent it wisely afterward and didn’t waste it. Spent it on the wonderful things she always wanted and couldn’t have, a large house with regular heating, beautiful clothes, and food that filled your stomach and didn’t leave you wanting.

How would Doctor Abrams interpret that one?

Dad said, “You told me to wake you at eight. I forgot to tell you there was a note on the door. Here.”

“Whaaat?”

“There was a note on the door. You told me to wake you at eight.”

“Yes, thank you.” I got up and shook off the fatigue and the stiffness from falling asleep on the couch. I shuffle-stepped barefoot into the bathroom and turned on the shower. Back in my bedroom, I took a set of clothes from my dresser, laid them on the closed toilet in the bathroom, and stepped in the hot water. Steam roiled up all around. I let the hot water sluice over my body and ease a deep-seated tension as my mind went over the surreal story Dad told a few hours earlier. This version of his history dispelled all previous images of a mother I’d been forced to make up on my own. I could never justify any motivation as to why he would not tell me about her. Now it all made sense.

A few hours ago, he had ended his story with my mom out cold on the couch while he dialed the phone. Tears had streamed down his face as he said the last words and stopped talking. I couldn’t ask him who he called back then or what had happened to her. I wanted to know but wasn’t sure I could ask him to once again make that trip back to a time he would rather forget, a time that caused him so much pain.

With a refreshed mind, my thoughts quickly shifted to the obvious: poor Dad, what he had gone through. And worse, that he’d kept it bottled up for so long dealing with it all on his own.

Then another thought struck. Was I genetically predisposed to my mother’s criminal behavior? Was that why I had been so good at tracking down murderers? Because I thought like them and instinctively knew what moves they’d make before they made them as the law continued to close in? Was I destined to eventually deviate and break bad like Wicks had already thought I had? Would I turn criminal and have to run from the law the rest of my life?

No. Not a chance. I was a deputy sheriff and I’d never give that up.

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